VICTORIA BUTTER MAKING

New Zealand Mail, 29 January 1902, Page 54

VICTORIA BUTTER MAKING

THE METHODS OF A VICTORIAN BUTTERMAKER.

The following notes on summer buttermaking are contained in a letter of a Victorian buttermaker to a junior factory manager and published in the Melbourne “Leader”:— Each day brings the butter-maker new experiences and trials. The main object is securing a first-class article of butter in the summer time, and the key note is “cleanliness,” from the food and water given to the cow until the butter is placed in the hands of the consumer. Much has been said and written on this point, but it is only by nagging away from time to time that perhaps at last our object will be accomplished, and that is by educating the farmer to co-operate in this industry. We must show him how lie can best aerate his milk, by running it over an aerator or using a solid handled dipper to stir it thoroughly, letting the animal odours off, and have it purified by coming in contact with the atmosphere outdoors; then cooling it down so that fermentation will'not take place, taking into consideration that it has been strained and put into vessels that have been thoroughly washed, scakied and steamed. If you have educated the farmer up to this point your butter is half made, for it is this fighting against uncleanness and carelessness on the part of the supplier that keeps summer makers continually in hot water. The best butter makers fail now and again to make an even quality of butter, even when they have received a firstj class lot of milk. This, no doubt, is owing to the different changes and conditions of the milk and weather, and cannot be placed to the discredit of either; but we are in an age now when nothing seems too great for man and machinery to overcome, and to overcome this point we must pasteurise our milk or cream every day to get even quality. This is what we are doing. At each of our stations a pasteuriser is placed to pasteurise the cream only; the cream is then brought to the central factory, where it is run over the cooler to a temperature of GOdeg. A skim milk starter is used, being made of half a can of good, pure skim milk. Pasteurise all this by heating to IGOdeg., and let it stand for twenty minutes. Then add as much pure water as milk, which cools it down to 98; stir it well and add one dipper full of the old starter, chaining once in two weeks by letting the slum milk stand two days without adding the ferment.

fh o starter is put in the vat before the cream, so that fermentation takes place immediately. When about 50 or 30. per cent, of acid is shown by the acid test, cool down as quickly as possible to 48 or 50 deg., stirring it every half hour or so with a common hay rake which has given me the best satisfaction After the cream is all pumped up and strained the pipes are all thoroughly flushed with lukewarm water, then steamed, followed with boiling water pumped through them each day. The cream should be kepi at churning temperature from ten to twelve hours be>ourtt^lUriFlngVailbe T ell stirred 'beforo n f A t 0 the , c,lllrn - an d should not show any more than GO. per cent, of

acid or less than 50 Dor much acid has developed H?.' ft to, agulates firmly during th» Z breaks up into" small wlfi te are incorporated in the it a bad appearance. When W ce,,t s „ t&t „, Ub -J n »N^ When tho churn has been . cooled, strain the cream throS* 4 strainer filling the churn oiXu> or a little over, revolving from *&**! revolutions per minute, taking to ®> to 45 minutes to churn at a tin frota ft of 50 degrees. When the®23?Wl to swish m the churn, it k a it has broken, showing of butter Stop tl.e pail of water the temperature nf „ 4 * with a handful of salt, butter a better chance to the buttermilk and hardens tti ules. Let the churn revEWfe the butter shows about the grains, when the buttermilk off, and after draining for five & let the water at 48 degrees run tt U e ' until it is clear; closftK the churn two-thirds full revolt f 4 half a minute, and draw off water 1-°' ing down with same. After th«W has drained for fifteen or twenk utes, it is shovelled into 801 b. tubs “i weighed, putting the worker into I tubs, then sprinkling on 51t>. of J? and again adding two more tubs tag salting at half to 6re..i g SE^ to one pound of butter. The butter i! only worked once, and during the L mer we never bad a mottled oraerZ sample. b - J . Whett ready for packing, the butter is put on the long table with scales at one end, and another smaller table is used for boxes, which are lined with hear? parchment paper, two strips in each hi soaked in strong brine from twelve to fifteen hours before using. Butter that is to be packed for future consumption shopld be a great deal drier than that intended for immediate use. ft should also be packed solidly, so tnat when turned out of tlie box it will not show any crevices for brine to ioctge, givin* it an unsightly appearance. Put the butter in a room the first day with a temperature between 45 and 50 degrees, so that it will have a chance fo cod gradually before putting it into the refrigerating room, which should he at a temperature of 30 to 35, and if kept for any length of time, below 30. After the day’s make is over, wash adl.woojenware in boiling water, steam fc oughly and give a light sprinkling i salt over everything. Scrub the flocp which should be of cement, with b&i ing water, and then pour a down oral pails of the same down each waste pip and gutter, accompanied every two or three weeks with a solution of copm, In summer time we separate at wteei temperature it comes in at . We separate and take samples, and find we lata better texture the lower the cream ii ripened at. We ripen at about 60to 05 degrees. Of course, in the morning when we start at the central factory; we put our cream into the vats along with the starter; and in the afternoon, when the cream comes in from tlo creameries, we start to cool down immediately, and find we always bars enough acid the next morning. ripen at 60 or 65 degrees, and still have it ripened for ten or twelve hours before churning.