CHtJRKl2fG AKi) CHXTRKS. 283 



of sixty-two degrees, and the butter came in eleven min 

 utes. The next churning was at sixty-fiye degrees and but- 

 ter came in eight minutes. So that it could not have been 

 the temperature at which the cream was churned ; but — 

 as it was on January 3d, and the weather had been very 

 cold, the cream-cellar having been down to forty degrees 

 for several days — it was the low temperature at which 

 the cream had been kept that caused the difficulty. 

 Cream that is kept at a temperature of at least fifty-five 

 to sixty degrees, and not more than three days, may 

 always be churned in thirty minutes at a temperature 

 of sixty-two to sixty-five degrees, if the churn is a 

 good one, and in the best churns butter will come in 

 from ten to twenty minutes. 



Foaming of cream in the churn may be due to too low 

 or too high a temperature, or too long keeping ; slow, 

 delayed churning is often accompanied by foaming. As 

 soon as the churning begins, air is rapidly intermingled 

 with the cream and innumerable vesicles are formed, each 

 containing air. This expands the cream (as in whipped 

 cream for cooking), and it is really foaming ; but under 

 proper circumstances this foaming subsides as rapidly, 

 and the noiseless motion of the churn quickly changes to 

 a *•' slap-dash" sound, w^hich precedes the more sharply 

 liquid sound of the coming butter. If the cream is too 

 warm for the particles of butter to unite, the emulsion 

 (foaming) continues until the remedy — a decrease of 

 temperature by addition of cold water — is applied. But 

 this emulsion may be formed in another way, and is 

 often thus formed in the summer, by too long standing 

 of the cream on the milk, or too long keeping of the 

 cream before it is churned. The cause of it is the for- 

 mation of alcohol in the milk by the decomposition of 

 the milk sugar, and the combination of the alcohol with 

 the fat and the formation of a soap. When this happens 

 no amount of churning will bring the butter. It may 



