Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-10-09
Scalding Milk for Butter.

As great as is the improvement in cream
raising, by the use of deep vessels set in ice
water, for large diaries, quite as great, in our
Judgment, is that of scalding the fresh milk
before setting it in small pans, for diaries
where only a moderate number of cows
is kept.
METHOD OF sCALDING MILK.
Though it has long been known, that
scaldng milk hastens the rising of the
cream, while prolonging the period of sweet
ness in warm weather. it is only lately that
this method has been reduced to a system,
and to a considerable extent popularized,
through the efforts of Mr.. Ellsworth, of
Massachusetts. BY experiment he has as
certained the precise temperature-one hun
dred and thrty-fve degrees-for securing
the best and most uniform results We
have tested his practice, and find it excel
lent. The milk is strained into brass or
copper kettle large enough to hold single
milking, and the temperature slowly and
maintained there for about half an hour,
and then poured into pans and set upon the
racks OF the milk-room, which should always
be well aired, so as to quickly remove the
vapor arising from the milk, and prevent its
being deposited upon the walls and wood
work. The cream rises with astonishing
rapidly, and is of a firm consistency, which
admits of its removal in from twelve to
twenty-four hours, leaving the residue quite
sweet.
1t is desirable not to have skin form upon
the milk in scalding This skin " is made
of the coagulated albumen of the milk, and
when the milk is scalded in the pans, in the
way sometimes practiced, it is entangled in
the cream, removed with it to the churn, and
remains in the butter. When the butter is
sold for immediate use the evil thus caused
is not Immediately noticed, but it seriously
impars the keeping, when the butter is put
down for future use or sale. We think it
best to strain out Of as well as into, the scald-
ing-kettle, to insure the removal of all coag-
ulated matter.
BENEFITS OF sCALDED MILK.
This method of scalding secures perfect
butter, not only during the hot months of
summer, but also during the cold weather of
winter when quite as much difficulty is ex-
perienced in making good butter, in the old
way, as in the summer. 1t prevents alike
the hasty souring, before the cream is up,
in summer, and the bitterness so often de-
veloped by the long setting of winter By
its effect of fastening the rising of the
cream, all the inevitable evils and losses of
delay are avoided, and a uniform make Sc
cured at all seasons.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF 1T.
We have been interested in studying into
the philosophy of both this and the Geld
method of setting milk for cream, and think
we have reached its rational explanation.
1t is well known that large-gobuled milk
throws up its cream quicker and more per-
fectly than that which holds its fat more
finely divided. Now, the effect of scalding
is simply to enlarge the globules by coales-
cence, or running together. At the tenn
perature of the milk when drawn from the
cow-about ninety-eight degrees-the but.
ter.gobules are not perfectly fluid, but when
it is heated to one hundred aud thirty.fve
degrees, the globules which come in contact
will unite, forming larger globules These
enlarged globules not only rise quickly, but
by their superior attractive power draw up,
so to speak, the smaller gobules, and thus
hasten the rising of all cream.
FALLACY EXPLODED BY AN EXPERIMENT.
We will mention, in this connec-
ton, another matter. 1t was for a while
asserted that, when the cream of large
globuled milk is churned with the cream of
small-globuled milk, the former will "come"
first, and that second churning of the
residue will give second mess of butter.
But careful experiment entirely disproves
the assertion, and the reason is plain when
we understand the attractive power of the
large over the small globules. We recently
in course of experiment upon this point
carried it little further as follows After
churning quantity Of cream, sufficient to
about half fill the churn, until the united
globules began to be visible to the naked
EYE e., until the butter had begun to
come" we poured in several quarts more
of cream, and in five minutes more, when
the butter was gathered we had all the
butter from both messes of cream. The at
tractive power of the pin-head masses of
butter had, in that brief time, gathered in
all the globules of the added cream. To in
sure the success of such an experiment, the
temperature of the cream must be Just
right-from sixty to sixty-five degrees-and
the final churning rather slow than rapid