BUTTER. 



BUTTER. 



is about the ordinary temperature of a good j 

 spring or milk-house. Experiments instituted 

 for the purpose have determined this as the | 

 best temperature at which to commence the j 

 operation of churning, and that at no time ! 

 during the operation ought it to exceed 65. j 

 If the temperature be higher, it will be attended 

 with injury to the quality and quantity of the 

 butter. If lower than 50, the butter will not 

 "come." After the butter has formed, warm 

 water may be gradually added, so as to raise 

 the temperature to 70 or 75, one person agi- 

 tating while another throws in the water. The 

 temperature must be raised to or above 70 

 before the butter can be separated from the 

 milk; and this cannot be accomplished in any 

 way so well as by pouring in boiling water 

 after it has begun to be churned. If the milk 

 is too cold, when churning it swells, has a pale 

 white colour, throws upon the surface many 

 air-bubbles, and emits a rattling noise; the 

 time of churning is from 2 to 2| hours ; the 

 milk being of ordinary quality, 24 pints impe- 

 rial yield 24 ounces of bulier. 



In the making of butter, care and cleanliness 

 are requisite. The cows should be milked in 

 the cool of the morning and evening; they 

 should be driven very gently, and if brought to 

 the milking-place some little time previously, 

 it will be all the better. In some countries 

 they milk them in their pastures, a practice 

 commonly followed in mountainous districts, 

 and where they are distant from the dairy. 

 The teats of the cow should be washed often 

 with water, and the dairy floors (which are 

 best of brick) and all the dairy utensils cannot 

 be too frequently washed, not only because dirt 

 is exceedingly noxious to the production of 

 good butter, but from the coolness which it 

 produces in the dairy. 



When the milk is brought into the dairy, it 

 is strained through a sieve, to remove any me- 

 chanically diffused matters, and then placed in 

 shallow pans and coolers, or leaden troughs. 

 Some are made of iron tinned, others of brass. 

 There is, however, an objection to leaden 

 troughs, for at the point of contact between the 

 air and the cream, the latter aids the oxidize- 

 ment of the lead; and carbonic acid being 

 attracted, a carbonate of lead (white lead) is 

 formed, and communicates a poisonous pro- 

 perty to the cream. Painters' colic has been 

 thus sometimes communicated to dairymaids. 

 Zinc, or iron tinned, is preferable to lead for 

 dairy vessels. The same objection applies to 

 brass as to lead. Metal ones are regarded as 

 the best, from their rapidity of cooling in sum- 

 mer, and from their being more easily warmed 

 in the winter; they are besides (and the same 

 remark applies to the milk pails, &c.) more 

 readily and completely cleaned than those of 

 wood or earthenware. The dairy should be 

 well ventilated by wire-gauze windows, and 

 protected by either trees or buildings from the 

 heat of the sun. In twelve hours the finest 

 portion of the cream has risen to the surface, 

 which, if then separated from the milk and 

 churned, produces a very delicate butter. It is 

 commonly left, however, for twenty-four hours, 

 and then skimmed off and deposited in an 

 earthen vessel. In the dairies of the usual 

 31 



size, the cream collected is churned every two 

 days, and the formation of the butter is found 

 to be materially accelerated by the cream ac- 

 quiring a slight acidity; indeed, it has been 

 sometimes contended that, without the presence 

 of an acid, butter cannot be made. Lactic acid 

 indeed is always present in buttermilk; an 

 acid quality is even, in some cases, imparted 

 to it by the dairywomen, who add a small 

 quantity of vinegar or lemon-juice ; this, how- 

 ever, does not improve the flavour of the but- 

 ter, and it injures it considerably for salting. 

 To effect the separation of the butter from the 

 cream, a considerable degree of agitation is 

 necessary, varying with the electrical state of 

 the atmosphere, and other circumstances. Of 

 the influence of electricity no one will doubt 

 who has witnessed the effect of a thunder-storm 

 on a dairy of milk. The agitation or churning 

 is produced by various-sized churns, the most 

 common shaped of which is the upright wooden 

 churn, with an upright plunger; others are 

 made of barrels, turning on an axle by means 

 of a common winch ; some are made like cra- 

 dles, and rock much in the same manner: 

 these are worked chiefly by hand. But it is 

 sometimes done by horse power, and very 

 commonly now in Cheshire by small portable 

 high-pressure steam-engines : these last might 

 easily be made to cut chaff, bruise corn for 

 stock, crush bones, and a variety of other use- 

 ful purposes. 



In the course of a period varying from one 

 hour to several hours, according to circum- 

 stances, the butter begins to make its appear- 

 ance in small lumps or kernels, which are 

 gradually increased in number as the churn- 

 ing proceeds ; these are collected and placed 

 in a shallow wooden vessel, or washing-tub, 

 and when all the butter is "come" or extracted, 

 little else remains but the buttermilk. The 

 butter placed in the washing-tub is worked by 

 the hand into a mass, the buttermilk squeezed 

 out, and the butter washed in water, an opera- 

 tion which, when it is intended for keeping, 

 cannot be too carefully performed; and if the 

 person who works it has not a very cool hand, 

 it should be kept as cool as possible by fre- 

 quent ablutions in cold water. A large portion 

 of the butter made at a distance from large 

 towns is salted and put into casks or firkins, 

 which weigh about 56 Ibs. ; about 3 or 4 Ibs. 

 of salt are required for this purpose, which 

 should be of the finest and purest description,, 

 totally free from the bitter deliquescing salts 

 which commonly abound in that made by 

 artificial heat from sea water. The casks also 

 should be made of clean wood, and before ihe 

 butter is placed in them they should be well 

 washed with hot brine. " If," says a writer in 

 the Penny Cyclopedia, "there is not a sufficient 

 quantity to fill the cask at once, the surface 

 is made smooth, some salt is put over it, and 

 a cloth is pressed close upon it to exclude the 

 air. When the remainder is added at the next 

 churning, the cloth is taken off, and the salt 

 which had been put on the surface is care- 

 fully removed with a spoon. The surface is 

 then made rough with a small wooden spade, 

 and left so, and the newly salted butter is 

 ! added, and incorporated completely. This 

 X 241 



