180 



SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF DAIRYING. 



lumps, and this should be done as effectively as possible. As soon 

 as this is effected butter should no longer be worked. A longer 

 period of working is not only useless, but is even deleterious, since 

 it influences in an injurious manner the characteristic structure pos- 

 sessed by good butter. The art of working consists in expressing 



the butter-milk contained in 

 the butter into large drops, 

 in such a manner that they 

 unite together, and then by 

 so turning it that the drops 

 formed in this way flow out 

 owing to their gravity. The 

 formation of large drops is 

 effected by making number- 

 less deep impressions for a 

 sufficiently long time on the 

 pieces of butter. It is quite 

 a mistake and is useless to 

 press the butter on all sides 

 at the same time, in working 

 it, or to squeeze it out in thin 

 layers, or to treat it in any 

 other way violently. The 

 most excellent kinds of 

 butter contain not less than 



10 and not more than 15 per cent of water. Overworked butter, 

 that is, butter which has been too long and too powerfully kneaded, 

 possesses a stale dry appearance; and butter, when insufficiently 

 worked, is soft and oily. 



The operation of working should always be effected entirely 



and this would be best, or chiefly 



v te 



rig. 53. -Butter-knife. and 54) instead of with the hands. 



There is quite a large number 



of such utensils, of which several are not quite suited for the pur- 

 pose, as, for example, the butter-syringe of Handcock and Von 

 Bohlken and others, the Eureka butter-worker, the Reid butter- 

 worker, and the Swiss butter- worker, all of which fall far short of 

 what is required. Only two butter-workers can be recommended 

 as well suited for their purpose, and as meeting in a satisfactory 



Fig. 52. Butter-worker. 



