The Dairy.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 978, 28 November 1890, Page 22

The Dairy.

HOW TO MAKE GOOD BUTTER. The following instructions for making good butter hare been prepared by W. Smith, of the Carse of Gowrie Creamery Company, Dundee, especially for farmers who are cot possessed of separators or other machinery necessary for the more advanced methods of dairy practice : TO MAKE GOOD BUTTER FROM COWS FED ON GRASS. 1. Milk the cows cleanly and clean. 2. Strain the milk through a fine sieve or clean cloth, and set in clean dißhes as soon as it is milked. Where early cream is re. quired for table use or sweet cream butter, scald the dishes, set the hot milk in the hot dishe3, and ten minutes after set the dishes in cold water (running if possible), skim in six hours, and churn at once. 3. For sour cream butter skim at twentyfour h'ours, collecting two days’ cream in one jar, and churn the third day. Be sure all the cream you churn, at one time, has been mixed for twelve hours before churning. 4. Have the cream at a temperature of 58 degrees before it is put into the churn, raise or lower the temperature by plunging the oream jar into hot or cold water, stirring the cream. 5. Drive the churn about sixty revolutions per minute, ventilating several times during the first five minutes. C. Watch carefully for the cream ’ break, ing,’ and stop churning when you see butter like peas or wheat; strain off the buttermilk with a sieve, and for fresh butter, wash with cold water in the churn until the water comes off as cle*r as it goes in, and make up into any Bhape with butter-beaters. 7. Whea salting use no water, remove the butter to a butter-worker or tub right out of the buttermilk, and while it is at churning temperature. Ascertain the weight of butter and weigh your salt (say half an ounce to the lb), work in the salt with a roller or butter beaters, and cover it up with a cloth for twenty-four hours, rework the whole lump together and pack into jars firmly, and never expose it again until it is to be consumed. The quantity of salt may [ vary from a quarter to three-quarters of an ounce to the lb. 8. The hands should never touch the butter. TO MAKE GOOD BUTTER FROM COWS FED ON TURNIPS AND STRAW. 1. Set the milk the same as for early cream, in hot dishes and cold water. 2. Skim at twelve hours, and scald the oream by plunging the jar in boiling water, and keep Btirring until it reaches 150 deg. Then put the jar in cold water and reduce the temperature to 60 deg. Collect and churn two days’ cream together, never put fresh and gathered cream together at ohurn. ing time, and churn at 60 deg. Butter made in this way should be entirely free from the taste of turnips. 3. In washing for fresh batter salos, in the winter time when the water is nearly at freezing point, heat the water to 50 deg,, and wash and make up the butter at that temperature. For salting use no water, and caix the salt with the butter at the churning temperature. 4. For packing butter. Pack dose with a harl wood beater, so as no air can get in, putting one churning above another until the crock or tub is tilled, and after the batter ha 3 clung so as to leave an open space all round the crock or tub, fill the space with salted brine, and fix it up air-tight. 5. The hands should never touch the butter. POTTING BUTTER. The following directions will be found useful for those who are not accustomed to tho potting of butter : There are three things requiring special attention in tbe process—viz,, the making of the butter, the preparation of the crock into which it is to be put, and the best way of keeping it after it is potted. In all cases, but especia'ly when butter is to be put up for keeping, tbe greatest attention should be paid to the due skimming of the milk, for if the cream is allowed to , remain on the dishes till it is over ripe, and begun to develop non-keeping qualities, tbe butter made from it will never be lit for petting. (Some frugal housewives indulge in this pract-ico from tho mi-taken idea that they i thereby get a thicker cream, but if they , would skim their milk at a proper age, and 1 let it stand tor a socond skimming, they , would then see huw little was to be gained i by it, and how the deterioration of quality would not be repaid by the increase of i quantity. I Beginners in the art of butter- making , doraetimes put the question, ‘How often ;

should we skim ? At the end of twenty, four hours, or thirty-six, or when ?’ And occasionally some genius condescends on a definite reply, irrespective of season, weather, temperature of dairy, &c. Now, no hard and fast rulo can be laid down for skimming, so many and so various are the conditions attending it, and it is one of the marks of an efficient dairymaid to be abio to tell from observation exactly at what date the cream Bhould be lifted off the milk and consigned to the pitcher, where it should be frequently stirred to prevent a film forming on the top. There is no better way of arriving at a correct conclusion, than to take the tip of the little finger and gently push the cream from the side of the dish; if it shows a kind of solidity and adherence, and the milk looks blue below, then it is quite ready for taking off, but if the milk*and cream aro not distinctly separate it may be allowed to stand a few hours longer. If the cream is fresh and sweet, with a sub-acid taste and smell, but neither bitter nor rancid, and if the churning is so ramaged aG to produce a firm, sound butter, then the manipulator may go cheerfully to work, but if a soft spongy butter, from which the butter-milk cannot be washed thoroughly ou*, is produced all the skill and care in the world will never make it a good keeping butter, and it had better be salted down for immediate use at home, or marketed for what it will bring. Presuming the butter is of first-rate quality, wash it till the water comes off quite pure, and work in some finely-powdered salt, in the proportion of lees than an ounce of salt to each pound of butter ; work it over twice, and put away till next day ; iu the meantime scald the crock thoroughly with quite boiling water, after which fill it with cold water and let it stand till wanted ; when to be used pour out the water, shaking it to get it as dry as possible, but do not wipe it; sprinkle the sides and bottom with salt, then work the butter over, pressing out the superfluous moisture; shape a pound or two pounds according to the size of the crock into a round that will go easily in without catching on the sides; drop it into the crock, and press it well down, proceed till within an inch of the top and smooth it neatly over; let it stand a day or so to firm, then wipe the top quite dry and lay a bit of clean linen over it, pressing it closely down; then cover thickly with salt aud stand the crock in a cool dry place. If these directions are attended to, there need be no -apprehension about putting up butter for keeping as soon as the cows get out to graze. Grass butter is easily managed, but when artificial feeding is resorted to, the result may be a little uncertain. SEPARATED MILK. ‘Separated milk,’ says the British Medical Journal, is a highly nourishing and most valuable article of food. At present immense quantities of it, which could not be put to better use than in aiding the direct food supplies of the population, are thrown to the pigs or disposed of at nominal rates for mixed trade purposes. Separated milk, it is almost needless to say, contains all the milk except the fat, which is converted into butter. Now, fat is a very necessary thing for infants, for children and infants cannot do without it. But children and adults can easily find other meanß of getting the required hydrocarbon, either in the form of suet, lard, sugar or jam. Yery few people, perhaps, know how large a part cheap jam now plays in the feeding of the poor school child. The cheapness of sugar and the great abundance of cheap fruitpreserve are playing a most important, and, indeed, an invaluable part in the feeding of the children of the artisan, the labourer, aud the cottagor. It is surprising but satisfactory to see nowadays how the child brings to school a hunk of bread and jam. There is no better form of hydrocarbon. Separated milk and cheap jam are additions of vast national importance to our dietary. Wherever weeds grow luxuriantly the ground is usually fertile and such ground should be made to produce some kind of crop. To try to farm without manure is foolish. •To plant more acres than can bo taken care of is foolish. An egg will remain fresh but a Bhorfc time during very warm days, and especially if left In tho neßt, to be occasionally warmed by the hens when they go on the nest to lay.. When they become very stale, there is sometimes an accumulation of gas, the consequence being that the egg will bur.t in the nest, discharging its contents over the materials in the nest and over the hens. As the lioe delight in filth, this condition of things will be very favourable to them, and they will multiply so rapidly as to cause surprise. Never use eggs as nest eggs at any season of the year.