WINTER BUTTER MAKING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 277, 31 July 1880, Page 2

WINTER BUTTER MAKING.

By Henry Stewart, in Rural New Yorker

THE DAIRY

If the first requisite good butter is the cov*, the second is the dairy room or house, for it is useless to procure good milk, if it is spoiled iu the keeping. A. dairy room should have an even temperature, and in the winter may be kept at 45 to 50 degrees. One that is partly underground And has an apartment over it for churning And washing pans, &c, is preferable, as it will netd no artificial heating by a stove. I prefer oue with brick walls, white-washed with lime, plas'.ered overhead, and with a cement or flagstone floor : that has the windows above ground and facing the south and west ; the windows covered with fine wire gauze outside and hinged at the top, so that they may be opened by raising and hooking up the sash. The window being close to the ceiling, ventilates the room completely. My oira aim in a dairy house is a building having a brick basement in a hill-side, with ice-houae in the

ear, having a chute on the bank through which to put in ice ; and the milk room in the front, with porch for airing the cans and pails. Over the milk room shall be the churning and washing room provided with a water heater, and with an elevator for passing cream and butter up find down, and stairs leading below ; also a sink with taps from a tank above. Over the milk room shall bo a tank supplied from a well, by a windmill overtopping the whole. From'the tank, water may flow through a pipe into the rooms below, for use in washing pans or supplying water in case the submerged-can system of setting the milk might be used at anytime. A sink and drain may also be carried from the milk room. The tank will be high enough to supply the house and the barn with water through pipes. The cost of the whole I estimate to be about 600dol for a dairy of 50 cows, and no one can doubt that it will be a profitable investment for the maker of extra butter.

TPK CHURNING. When I enter this part of my subject I touch a broad fbld, over which lie, in perspective, the ghosts of a score or more discarded and departed churns, ahe misery of a butter-maker is the endless variety of churns. There are many good churns, beginning with the old-fashioned up-and-down one, which recalls my boyhood when I waited for my cup of fresh buttermPk, avid often waited three hours; for in those days ihe whole milk was churned. Now I can get my buttermilk in eight minutes, or less, by the old kitchen clock, which never varies from vear's end t<> year's end. But it is not from an up-and-down churn, which, although it makea good butter r is a man and woman killer ; it is now from a "rectangular" churn, and it is right angled without any doubt, for the butter not only comes quickly, but in such ex-r cellcnt shape, being beaten about by these proper angh s, as to grpatly facili-r tate the washing and preparing of the butter.

To particularise, let us recall the churning of the 7th of January, 1880, because this was an eventful one, and settle J in my mind some questions which were previously doubtful to me My cross-bred three-year-old Jersey and Ayrshire cow, Maida, had been fresh two weeks, and this was the first churning of six days' milk. The cream—l2 quarts exactly—was turned into the rectangular churn • aforesaid, and the chum and cream were both at a temperature of 65 degrees. After churning for eight minutes precisely, making 70 revolutions of the churn per minute. 1 was surprised to hear the "slap-dash" of the buttermilk, and was more thsn surprised on opening the churn to see so magnificent a sample of butter. The mass of golden butter was in small grains from the size of sago grains up to that of buck-shot, lying in an irregular mass piled up in the churn, with a small quantity of buttermilk at the bottom. The butter weighed 12|pounds. The result, 10£ pounds of butter from 12 quarts of "thick cream, churned in eight mmutss, at a temperature of 65 degrees, settled some points about which questions are frequently asked.

This churning out of. the way the cream of two Ayrshire cows three-year-old, that have been milkin.«■ 10 months and aie three in calf—l 4 quarts in all—r was put in the c-iurn at a temperature of 60 degrees. This I churned three hours patiently without breaking- the cream, and was advised to throw the cream out as it was one of those messes which would neverchura. Let us try some warm water. A quart of hot water from the kettle was thrown in, the churn rotated, and m one nirute the butter came ; the temperature in the churn then was 64 degrees. T:;is also goes some way to settle another difficulty in winter dairying, which causes a great deal of trouble.

If butter comes at 64 or 65 degrees, in a short time, and fails to come at' all at 60 degrees, this is a valuable fact to know. Another churning of Ma : da's cream of 16 quarts, trom seven days' milk, produces 14 pqunds of butter in 12 minutes at a temperature of 65 degrees, with several stoppages to watch the progress, so that quarts of nearly pure cream, will mike s,3ven pounds of butter, churns, The Tartars are said tq do their churn? ing by putting the milk, in a sheepskin bottle, whicn they tie to the trundle and take a brisk .i allop for an hour or two ; on returning the butter is made. This is the original horse-power churn. But principle is clearly the same as that of our best modern churns, viz., agitation of the milk in a vessel in which the contents are dashed from one side to another to break up the butler g obules. This is the principe cf all the dashless churns of which so many of such various shapes were shown at the late International Dairy Fair. The peculiar action of these churns produces the butter m small globules, as above mentioned, in this shape the milk can be drawn off and the cold water or brine introduced into the chum, and the butter thonurhly washed and made ready for immediate pa. king. Certainly of the man y churns which I have used, the - Rectangular " pleases me the most, on account of its very easy motion, its shape, which is a hollow cube suspended diagonally upon two of its opposite corners, its freedom from iron gudgeons penetrating inside as is usual in dash churns, and which will blacken and foul the butter, and chiefly on account of the ease and perfection with which it can be cleansed, i*s quick churning, and the excellent shape; in which the butter comes,