Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-12-12
The Mechanics Of Cream Raising.

Then health and abundance their labor would bless.
The Mechanics Of Cream Raising.
1t seems to us that more of what our old
chemical professor used to call bob. tailed
science has been worked into subjects con
nected with the handling of milk and the man
ufacture of butter and cheese than into any
other branch of so-called scientific farming
Deep-setting, after having been vehe-
mently denounced as utterly unscientifc, is
now so well established as both scientifically
and practically right that its old antagonists
are taking it up, and some of them are even
patenting notifications of it, which they
herald forth as being all that gives deep
setting any value at all. In this way they
seek to preserve the appearance of con
sistency. Deep-setting, they say, is always
and everywhere humbug, but my patent
method of deep-setting redeems it and elevates
it to the level of scientific truth and exacti-
tude. We do not propose to enter into any
argument with the ingenious persons who,
finding that what they derided is being
everywhere adopted, seek to make profit out
Of it. But we will lay down in plain terms
the very simple physical laws and facts con
nected with the subject of cream-raising, so
that no reader who will preserve the memory
of them need ever be misled, by ignorant
quackery or cunning mis-statement, into
spending money needlessly, in these hard
times, for patented apparatus.
In order that it shall produce good butter,
cream should be in perfect mechanical and
chemical state. To secure cream always in
this condition, the milk from which it is
obtained must be Understandings, that is,
scientifically, handled. The conditions un-
der which cream separates from milk easily,
quickly and perfectly, are few; but they
are absolute, and must be absolutely main
tanned. They are, first, a low and even
temperature attained as quickly as possible,
and afterwards, perfect rest until the cream
has risen. When these are secured if the
milk was soured in the beginning. and
neither it nor the cream exposed TO any
source of contamination during the rising.
we have perfect raw material for the pro
duction of glt-edged butter.
FTst-Low temperature. Until very re-
Gently it has been held that the proper tenn
perature for churning, from fifty to sixty
degrees, was also the proper temperature
for cream-raising. This belief was totally
unscientifc, but our scientific dairy writers
never seem to have had an inkling of the
error, until an account of the cold-setting
practiced in Sweden was brought to this
country. When it was announced that
in that part of the world the best dairy
men set their milk vessels in ice-water fol
the raising of cream, the idea met with
almost universal derision. The method is
now, after only four or five years, generally
admitted to be both practically and scien.
tifically correct. The quicker the whole
body of milk can be reduced to the tempera-
ture of forty degrees, and the more steadily
and exactly it can be maintained there, the
better will be the result, other things being
equal. Deep cans of small diameter, i'm
mersed or submerged in water at forty de.
grees, or little lower, are the best means
now used for the purpose 1t is possible
that passing the milk, after straning it.
through some simple cooling apparatus be
fore placing it in the cans, may be found
advantageous. 1t would obviate the neces
sity of having the cans of small diameter
and inconveniently high. When the milk is
once cooled to forty degrees it can be kept
at that point quite as easily in wide as in
narrow vessels, if the surface is properly
protected from the air Nv a non-conduct.
ing cover.
Second-Perfect rest. BY this we do not
merely mean that cans are not to be handled
about, or jostled. We do mean that ther,
shall be, as near as possible, absolutely
no movement of the mass of milk in the way
of ascending and defending currents, set in
motion by difference of temperature be-
tween the bottom, top and sides of the pals
or cans The temperature must not only be
lou, but it must be eUen, and any method
such as applying ice to the tops of the cans,
or exposing the bottoms to the air is calcu.
lated to defeat the end in view, which is the
rapid and perfect separation of the cream.
The butter globules as they exist in the milk
are so small (the smallest grain of butter
that we can see in the cream when it first
begins to " come" containing thousands of
them), and the difference in specific gravity
between them and the rest of the milk is so
little, that every species of movement in the
milk itself has the effect 10 hinder the
globules from coming to the top. As an
illustration Of this, we refer to the common
philosophical experiment of putting little
fine sawdust into glass vessel and placing
the vessel over spirit lamp If, previous
to applying the heat, we shake the glass
vessel, the sawdust mixes with the water.
Allow it to rest for a moment, and the saw.
dust all comes to the top. But when the
heat is applied currents are set up in the
water, and the particles of sawdust are seen
tre7elling with the currents up and down
and around the sides of the vessel. Ii is inst
the way with the butter globules in the milk.
when by some patent device, or by inatten.
ton to preserving uniform temperature,
currents are set in motion in the milk. Left
in the perfect quietude secured by an even
temperature, the little butter globules rap
idly come to the top. At first, when they
have risen, they do not perfectly join, but
have considerable quantity of milk inter.
mingled with them. Their attraction for
each other, however, soon condenses the
mass, and squeezes out the milk. Different
kinds of milk act somewhat differently in
this respect some condensing quickly and
Others slowly and imperfecty.
The theory upon which it has been pro-
posed to apply ice TO the top of the cans for
the purpose of creating currents in the milk.
with the view of Fastening the rising of the
cream, asserts that the butter globule will
cool more slowly than the rest of the milk.
and that the latter, made heavier by cooling.
will sink to the bottom, leaving the globules
at the top, If the globules were as big as
pears, and the difference in specific gravity
greater than it is, this might be true. But
the action of the currents upon the almost
infinitely little globules, TO carry them down