284 CHURNING 



per cent moisture limit. When butter contains too much 

 moisture as the result of churning at too high a temperature, it 

 is often difficult to correct the error. The fat in this condition 

 is so soft that it is exceedingly miscible with water and the 

 water is very finely distributed throughout the butter and thor- 

 oughly incorporated. For correction of this defect see chapter 

 on Moisture Control. 



High churning temperatures under certain conditions are 

 also prone to produce a slushy and very leaky butter. This is 

 especially the case in fall, winter and early spring, when the 

 melting point of the butterfat is relatively high and the higher 

 churning temperature does not very greatly increase the mis- 

 cibility of the butterfat, but reduces the emulsifying power of 

 the protein substances in butter. 



Too low a churning temperature is undesirable because it 

 greatly prolongs the churning process. This is due partly to 

 excessive solidification of the fat in the fat globules. The fat 

 globules become so firm that their power to coalesce and to form 

 butter granules is greatly reduced. The difficulty of churning 

 is further augmented by the increase of the viscosity of this 

 cold cream, which lessens the concussion, and by the churning 

 of cream with a very low butterfat content which hinders the 

 fat globules from uniting into granules, because of the large 

 amount of intervening serum. When churned at abnormally low 

 temperatures the butter appears in the form of very firm, small, 

 round granules which make the proper and uniform incorporai 

 tion of the salt difficult and which hinder the control of moist- 

 ure and overrun. Such butter is prone to be low in moisture 

 and to cause a correspondingly low overrun. In order to get 

 the salt properly incorporated there is danger of overworking it 

 and of giving the butter a salvy body. Of the two extremes, too 

 high and too low temperatures, the former, too high a tem- 

 perature, however, is the most harmful to the quality of the 

 butter. 



As previously shown, the churning temperature must be 

 governed by and adjusted according to the degree of firmness 

 of the fat in the cream and this in turn will vary with locality 

 and season of year, 



