CHURNING 291 



only upon prolonged exposure to cold. If cooled to the churn- 

 ing" temperature immediately before churning, the thermometer, 

 while registering the correct temperature, indicates the tem- 

 perature of the serum only. If such cream is churned at once 

 the temperature during the churning will rise rapidly and the 

 resulting butter will have a weak, slushy and leaky body. This 

 danger is avoided by cooling the cream to the churning tem- 

 perature several hours before churning and holding it at that 

 temperature. This gives the fat globules an opportunity to 

 give up their heat and to become thoroughly chilled and 

 hardened. If the buttermaker is so situated that he has to churn 

 without holding the cream at the churning temperature for the 

 necessary length of time before churning, he should cool the 

 cream to a much lower temperature than would otherwise be 

 required, or he may have to add crushed ice to the churn in order 

 to avoid injury to the body of the butter and heavy loss of fat. 



Richness of Cream. Cream low in butterfat requires more 

 time to complete the churning than cream rich in fat. In the 

 thin cream the fat globules do not coalesce as readily as in the 

 rich cream. They find each other with more difficulty on ac- 

 count of the intervening serum, and the butter granules are 

 slow in gathering enough fat globules to assume sufficient size 

 to complete the churning. This greatly prolongs the churning 

 process. In winter when there is no opportunity for the cream 

 to warm up during the prolonged churning process, the butter 

 granules formed in the thin cream are subjected to excessive 

 concussion, becoming round and very compact. This condi- 

 tion is prone to produce butter with a low moisture content. Thin 

 cream, owing to the large amount of intervening and interfer- 

 ing serum, generally does not churn out exhaustively, exces- 

 live fat is lost in the buttermilk, and the loss of fat is further 

 augmented by the relatively large amount of buttermilk. 



In the rich cream there is less intervening serum, 

 the fat globules are closer together, they find each other readily 

 and they churn out more rapidly. Since the richer cream churns 

 more rapidly, the butter granules are subjected to less grind- 

 ing against each other. They retain their original shape more 

 completely, are irregular in shape, flaky and less compact. 

 In this condition they do not drain as readily and lose less 



