350 DAIRY BUTTER MAKING 



Drawing off the buttermilk is best done by allowing the 

 churn to stand quietly a few minutes until the granules of butter 

 have risen to the top, when the buttermilk below may be drawn 

 off through a sieve quickly and with slight loss of butter. The 

 temperature of the butter at this time should be taken. 



Washing the butter is done for the purpose of removing 

 practically all of the buttermilk remaining in the mass. The 

 water, naturally, should be clean and of a temperature ranging 

 from the same to two degrees lower than the butter at the time 

 the buttermilk was drawn. In farm practice the butter should 

 be washed twice, using each time fully as much water as there 

 was cream at the start. The churn should be revolved two or 

 three times with each wash water to insure a more thorough 

 removal of the buttermilk. The last wash water should be kept 

 on the butter until the salt is ready to be applied when the tem- 

 perature of the work room is too warm, 65 degrees or above. 



Salt is used in butter for two purposes : To give flavor and 

 to preserve the butter. A few people, however, prefer the flavor 

 of unsalted, or so-called " sweet butter." They should expect, 

 however, that such will become rancid or moldy in a very- 

 much shorter time than would be the case had salt been mixed 

 with the same butter. The presence of salt to the amount of 

 2!/2 per cent of the total butter is protection also against mold- 

 ing. Neither green mold nor the ordinary black mold can grow 

 in the presence of such a quantity of salt. To make butter con- 

 tain 2!/2 per cent of salt in the finished article it is necessary to 

 add it in amount from 7 to 10 per cent, varying with the fine- 

 ness of the salt, the amount of water left in the granules of but- 

 ter in the churn, and the amount of butter made in proportion 

 to the size of the churn. A small batch requires more in pro- 

 portion. The more water remaining in the butter the greater 

 will be the amount of salt washed away. Fine salt, likewise, 

 dissolves more quickly and wastes more readily than coarse salt. 

 Coarse salt has the disadvantage, however, of being slow in dis- 

 solving, requiring from fifteen minutes to an hour to go into 

 solution. So long a time as this, however, will often cause the 

 butter in the churn to become warm and altogether too soft for 

 good working, or in winter to become too hard. It is desirable 



