Dairy Disagreeables Busy the Bacteriologists

This bitter flavor is not the same as the bitterness quite common in milk and cream at certain seasons of the year; as the milk itself tasted and smelled all right until well along in the process of cheese-making when the curd was being ærated and drained. The flavor was noticed in the factory in October and could not be checked, though the maker took great pains to wash and scald all his utensils and everything which touched the milk after it came from the farm. To locate the trouble, samples were taken of the milk of each patron and the cheese-making process started with each sample.

In 18 hours all the samples of curd appeared normal but two, which were gassy and bad-smelling; and one of these, when drained and exposed to the air, showed a pronounced bitter flavor. This sample proved to be from the dairy which had furnished the milk for making the Neufchatel, a milk specially selected because of its high fat-content. This furnished direct proof that the fault lay in the milk, not in its factory handling; and rejection of this milk ended the trouble in the Neufchatel. As already stated, the study could not be carried into the herd to see whether one cow, wrong stable surroundings, a stagnant pool of water or contaminated dairy utensils were to blame for the trouble in the factory.