ABC Butter Making: A Hand-Book for the BeginnerBurch, Frederick S.
Science
ABC Butter Making: A Hand-Book for the Beginner
Burch, Frederick S.
Butter
You now have your butter in the
best possible condition for working. When you purchase your churn be
sure and get one large enough; it is much better to have it too large
than not large enough. If you think you have not sufficient cream for
a churning and the cream is ripe, do not wait for another skimming,
but add sufficient milk to have the churn filled to about one-fourth
its capacity. Do not use milk that is very sour, as it is likely to
contain so much casein that your butter will not be of good flavor.
Many dairymen churn all the milk with the cream, but as it only adds
more work to the churning, I do not recommend it except in cases where
there is not cream enough to properly fill the churn. Illustrations are
given of the best churns for the dairy, viz., the Barrel Churn, the
Rectangular Churn, and the Pendulum Churn.
[Illustration: BOWL OF GRANULAR BUTTER.]
[Illustration: BARREL CHURN.]
[Illustration]
WORKING THE BUTTER.
[Illustration: HOME-MADE DANISH BUTTER WORKER.]
Never work the butter when it is too warm. I find that 56 degrees is
about right. The main point in working butter is to get the buttermilk
all out, and also to get it in good solid compact form. More depends
upon proper working than one would naturally suppose. You often see
butter with great drops of buttermilk standing all over it; such butter
was only half worked, and will generally contain thirty to forty per
cent. of water, and will keep sweet but a very short time. The other
extreme is overworking, and this produces a dry crumbly mass, with no
flavor. If the churning is done as described in the foregoing chapter
very little working is necessary, as the buttermilk is very nearly
all out of the butter before it leaves the churn. Take the butter out
of the churn with your butter spade, and heap it up on the worker.
If too warm for working at once, throw a cloth wet in cold water over
it, and leave to drain and cool for thirty minutes. Before using the
lever of your worker always dip it in cold water. Now take the lever
and gently press the butter out over the full surface of the worker,
and sprinkle on some salt; begin at the sides, and roll the butter back
into the centre, being careful not to do any rubbing or you will have
greasy butter. Now press out the whole mass again, and give it another
salting, and repeat the working two or three times until you have
incorporated the salt throughout the whole mass evenly. The general
rule for salting is to use one ounce of salt to a pound of butter, but
as some people like "salty" butter and some "fresh" butter, you must
salt according to the wants of your patrons. I always use a fine sieve,
and sift the salt over the butter on the worker, just as the baker
sifts his flour over the dough when making it. Much depends upon the
quality of the salt used in butter-making, and if you desire to make
good butter use only good salt, which is put up in sacks, and branded
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