CHURNING AND WASHING BUTTER. 243 
incorporate in excess, will, as a rule, be expressed during the 
working of the butter—a result due to its firmness. 
If the attempt is made to incorporate water by working 
the butter in water after the salt has been added, while the 
butter is in a hard, granular condition, it will usually appear 
leaky. 
If cream is in a good condition, overchurning to a small 
extent does not produce any bad results. The germs which 
are present in pure and well-ripened cream are not deleterious 
to the keeping quality of the butter. The amount of butter- 
milk incorporated in the butter is not sufficient to cause any 
bad effects upon its quality. If the cream is in proper condi- 
tion it is difficult to incorporate any more than 3% of curd 
into the butter. While overchurning is not to be recommended, 
if it is at any time desirable, it should be done in the wash- 
water rather than in the buttermilk. 
Churning Mixed, Sweet, and Sour Cream.— When two lots of 
cream are to be churned, one sweet and the other sour, they 
should be churned separately. If the two lots of cream are 
mixed together, the sour cream churns more quickly than the 
sweet cream. As a consequence the churn is likely to be 
stopped before the fat from the sweet cream has been com- 
pletely separated from the serum. 
At some of the creameries conditions are such that the 
operator may be tempted to mix the two lots of cream. Where 
sweet cream arrives at the creamery just previous to churning 
time, it is advisable not to mix the sweet cream with the sour. 
It is, as a rule, better to carry the sweet cream over to the 
next churning, or, if necessary, churn it separately. 
Difficult Churning.—Difficult churnings in creameries are 
not very common. In farm butter-making it is more frequent. 
Especially is this so in the fall. At this time the cows are 
usually well advanced in the period of lactation, and early in 
the winter they are often fed on food which causes hard butter- 
fat, as described under “Effect of Food upon Fat.” In the 
fall or early winter, a large portion of the milk is usually obtained 
