NOTES ON BUTTER-MAKING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5489, 14 February 1896, Page 4

NOTES ON BUTTER-MAKING.

[BY PROFESSOR CARROL, GLASNEVIN, , DUBLIN.] . ; THE MILK. Milk is very liable to injury from, several; causes :— l. Through the food tie cow eats.' ■ATI foods Having a bad flavour are injurious to nuikand butter. Some plants in pastures, such as wild garlic, give jnilk a bad flavour in Bummer. Swedish, turnips, decaying cabbages, bad hay or straw give bad flavours to milk in winter. Great care should be taken to give good, sweet food to cows giving milk. 2. Milk is injured through being near badly, smelling matter. It takes up the odour of moßt substances that have a strong smell. The butter made from milk that has been near such strong smelling substances cannot be good. Milk cannot be brought back to its good condition after it is injured by strong smelling matter, or when it is injured through having been allowed to stand in places where the air is not pure. 3. There are in the air very small living objects that fall upon milk and cause it to become sour and later on putrid or rotten. If milk could be kept absolutely secure from these it would never become sour or putrid. Our practical duty is to do as much as we can with good sense and skill to keep away as much as possible impurities of every kind. Cows should be fed with good pasture, and when house-fed they should have sound, sweet, wholesome food that is free from all taint and bad smells. Good, pure water is at all times necessary for milch cows. The houses where cows are kept should be perfectly clean and sweet. The cows themselves should be clean, and their udders and teats should be particularly clean. The place where milk is kept should be free from all bad smells. The apartment used as a dairy should be dry and airy, and it should be lime-washed regularly. Before milking clean the cows' udders and teats by rubbing them with a soft, dry cloth. If the udder is very dirty it should be washed, but it must afterwards be dried. . WHEN MILKING. ' . " ' Be gentle with cows in milking. Do not dip the fingers in the milk to moisten the cow's \teats. Milk the last drop of milk from eacncow: •'- Leaving milk in the cow's udder is wasteful, as the last drawn milk is the best, and the not milking clean out will cause a cow to run dry. Strain the milk carefully through a strainer with two folds of clean muslin. Wash the muslin afterwards and hang it in the air to dry. If the setting system is carried on, set the milk at once in tinned shallow pans. If possible in summer time place these pans in larger vessels, holding cold water. Cream rises rapidly in warm milk whilst the milk is cooling. Cream will rise more rapidly in a cold dairy than in a warm one, provided the milk is set whilst it is yet warm. If the separator, is used, the milk should be separated whilst it is warm and before the cream begins to rise in it. The cream should be skimmed from the pans as soon as it has all risen. This it should have done in twenty-four hours' after setting. The cream should be kept in a deep cream vessel. It should be well stirred and mixed as each skimming is added. THE CREAM. Cream should be ripened before it is churned. The ripening Will cause better yield of butter, and the butter will be of better flavour and quality from ripened cream. Cream when ripe has a pleasant slightly sour taste and an agreeable smell. In warm weather cream will become ripe without assistance ; but artificial souring or ripening of cream may be done with advantage in warm as well as in cold weather. In cold weather it is very desirable to artificially ripen cream before churning. Cream may be ripened by adding to it some good butter-milk from the last churning about fifteen hours before churning takes place. The buttermilk must be perfectly pure and must have been kept in a cldan, cold place. -It is used as follows : — The cream to be ripened is raised to a temperature of G2deg. in summer and 64deg. in winter. This "' RAISING- .OF TEMPERATURE maybe done by placing the .cream cans in a tub of warm water, and stirring the cream until the proper temperature is had. , The buttermilk is then added. About one ■ pint of buttermilk to two gallons of cream will be sufficient. The whole is then well mixed, and the cream can is put in a place where the temperature will.be about 60deg to 62deg, until it is to be churned, which should be about fifteen hours afterwards. In very large dairies a more scientific method of ripening cream may be adopted, namely, by the "ferment cultures," which are now much used in Denmark. The thermometer must be kept in every dairy if good methods are followed. Care must be taken that the thermometer is a good one, that will show the, temperature accurately.