Vermont Dairymen's Association. 103 



cent of water. It is unnecessary for me to spend any time here 

 in discussing the different fat contents of butter. Taking but- 

 ter as a whole there is more moisture incorporated in summer 

 months than in winter months, as butter has a lower melting- 

 point at this period. In the winter months, when butter contains 

 more stearine, it will stand much more working to bring about 

 the same condition as in the summer. To demonstrate this 

 more fully, I will give you a crude illustration. The majority 

 of you are familiar with putty. You take a piece of putty that is 

 somewhat dry and you invariably use oil to soften it. When 

 you first crush it in the oil, very little change takes place. After 

 a time, however, the putty assumes a pasty condition and takes 

 up the oil very quickly. If, however, you continue to work it in 

 the oil, the putty becomes short and brittle in the grain. Butter 

 acts very much the same with water as the putty does with oil. 

 The method usually used by those creameries that have incor- 

 porated an abnormal amount of water is as follows : They churn 

 at a low enough temperature to get an exhaustive churning, and 

 gather the butter in large granules. They wash these very 

 slightly and then place enough water on them to make them 

 float, or about 50 or 60 gallons to a churning. The rolls are then 

 placed in slow gear and the butter is worked the same as when 

 working in the salt. The number of revolutions they give the 

 churn will depend on the amount of water they wish to incor- 

 porate in the butter. In the winter months, they usually give it 

 about 20 revolutions and in the summer, 8 or 10. This of course 

 depends entirely on the condition of butter or the temperature of 

 cream when churned. Prof. Gray, now connected with our in- 

 stitution and formerly chemist for the big Continental Creamery 

 Co., tells me that so completely did one of their makers have this 

 system under his control, that he did not vary the moisture con- 

 tent of his butter over i percent during an entire month when 

 Mr. Gray made daily chemical analysis of the butter. 



When you first begin to work butter in water, the moisture 

 content is expelled from the butter, but after it softens up, it 

 takes up water very rapidly ; hence the greater number of revo- 

 lutions you give the churn at this period, the higher the water 

 content will be. Of course excessive churning will give you the 

 same result, but the water content cannot be kept as uniform 

 as by the other method. To get uniform results in churning, 

 cream should be cooled at least two hours — and better four — 

 before churning. After the butter has been worked the desired 

 number of revolutions, the water is removed and the butter is 

 salted at the rate of about 75^ lbs. salt to every 100 lbs. of 

 butter fat. This leaves about 3)^ percent salt in the finished 

 product. It takes about 20 revolutions with the Disbrow and 



