78 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



of getting out the buttermilk, the caseine, and milk-sugar. 

 Water poured over a large mass of butter does little good : 

 it must reach as many of the little particles as possible, 

 washing off any traces of the caseine sacs that yet remain. 

 It is far better, therefore, to do the washing while the butter 

 is in little particles or pellets than after it has been collected 

 in a large mass : hence the philosophy, or, in other words, 

 the good sense, of the granular method of butter-making. 



This method, which does away altogether with the usual 

 working, begins in its application at that point in churning 

 where the cream first " breaks," and the butter begins to col- 

 lect, or " come." The directions are as follows : stop churn- 

 ing as soon as the butter is seen in little pellets ; move 

 gently until these pellets are about the size of half wheat- 

 grains, and then pour pure water into the churn, twice as 

 much as there is buttermilk (it should be cold spring or 

 Avell water, or reduced to fifty degrees, or thereabouts, in 

 temperature) : this causes the butter-granules to contract 

 and harden. They may then be well washed by stirring the 

 mass with the dasher, or by slowly moving the churn. Next 

 take out the dasher, if there be one, and draw off the butter- 

 milk and water : hold a little strainer or colander to catch 

 any grains of butter that may escape. Again pour into the 

 churn water enough to float all the butter, and wash and 

 draw off, as before. Repeat this until the water flows off 

 the butter quite clear. A last lot of water is added, and the 

 butter-grains floating may then be dipped out with a small 

 wire strainer, cup-shaped, with handle, and placed in a bowl, 

 — dry, hard, golden grains, ready to salt. (If the churn be 

 one in which it is inconvenient to wash the butter, and 

 change the water, the butter may be dipped out a few mo- 

 ments after putting in the first water, — just as soon as the 

 grains are chilled, — and then washed in any handy vessel.) 

 Treated thus, the butter will be freer from buttermilk than 

 after any known method of working, and in much better 

 condition for salting. This would seem to be enough : it is 

 hard to believe that any caseine remains in it ; but there is 

 some yet, and the process may still be improved upon. 

 Made as described, the butter will contain from ten to fif- 

 teen per cent of water, and, if any fragments of caseine are 

 left in it, these, moistened by the water, and exposed to the 



