The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1886-09-11
a MODERN CREAMERY.


There are busy scenes at the crea m
cry every morning. Dozens of farm
wagons arc waiting to deliver their
loads of milk. One after another drives
up to the receiving platform, the farmer
sets out his cans and man counts
them and marks the number down
upon tab. If there is a can only par
TALLY full the man measures its con-
tents with stick and in two seconds
has jotted down the number of gallons.
The farmer then empties can after can
into the adjacent vat, passes the empty
cans to the receiver, who scalds them
in hot water and dry steam and slides
them out on another platform. whence
the farmer takes them few moments
later. Thus the wagons come and.go,
and into the big watts pour the previous
days product of thousand cows.
Butter-making in modern cream
cry is simple process. 1t beats the
old dairy method as a railway train
skips by stage coach. Nowadays the
milk Is not allowed to stand for the
cream to rise. No housewife comes
around with her skimming spoon to re-
move the cream. There is no residue
of rancid milk or -buttermilk. The
cool, white fluid from the farmers cans
flows directly into a cylinder whose in
terror is a cone revolving q thousand
times minute. This machine is called
centrifugal and its Office is the separ-
alton of the cream from the milk. 1t
does its work simply, quickly and per-
fectly. The motion of the cone causes
the milk to rise in perpendicular col
umn against the wall of the cylinder,
but the cream, being lighter than the
milk, remains nearer the cone; while
the heavier and creamless milk seeks
the outside. For illustration: Place
one bucket within another; the outer
one is the milk, the inner one the
cream. Into the chamber dip two
pipes, with their open ends striking the
tops of the walls of the cream and
milk. Through one pipe the motion
OF the machine sends the milk flying in
a steady stream to the cheese-room to
be made into unlovely and dyspepsia
breeding skim-cheese, while through
the other flows creamy current, sweet
and fragrant, to nearby vat. The
milk the farmer brought has not been
five minutes out of his wagon be-
fore that has been accompl' shed
which the dairy-maid spends day or
more in doing. The cream has been
instantly separated from the milk with
out standing. souring or skimming and
without mourning the usual dairy dan
gers OF change in temperature, thunder
storms, cats, dogs, small boys, flies,
bugs. proximity to onions, Goldfish,
vegetables or musty wood. There is.
in fact, steady sire am of cream flow
ing from the cans through the wonder
full separator to the watts where the
cream, dripping over coil of pipes
through which cold spring water is
passing, is still further cooled. In the
watts are more pipes with spring water,
and after half hours standing the
fragrant mass is ready for the churn.
The remainder of the operation is
quite as simple as the foregoing. Large
steam-turned churns soon make the
butter ''come," and by contrast remind
the visitor of the three-hour struggle
he had in his boyhood with the dasher
of his mothers stone churn in his tired
and blistered hands.
When the golden product leaves the
big churn there is small residue in the
shape of buttermilk. No fishing around
in the sour mass for stray pieces Of
butter, no straining of the remainder
for fragments too small to be caught
with ladle. Nor is there any dairy
maid, with more or less clean hands,
to ''work" the butter and laboriously
press out the buttermilk. Revolving
for few moments upon the table OF
the machine butter-workcr the sixty
pounds of creamery gives forth few
spoonfuls of milk. 1t is then packed
away in the spring house until the fol-
lowing morning. when it is worked"
again, Ashton salt being added in the
proportion of an ounce to the pound,
and it is then ready for the market.
Prime butter it is. too-fit for the table
of king.
1t is not surprising that the creamery
can make the best butter. Its propri-
etors take pains to see that the cows
are properly fed and cared for; they
require that the animal heat shall be
taken away from the milk as quickly
~ possible, and that the milk be kept
cool aud sweet until it arrives at the
factory; the centrifugal separator OBJ
viates the necessity of having milk
stand about for many hours. and also
makes perfect separation possible.
Throughout the entire process there is
the utmost cleanliness and uniformity.
The centrifugals, watts, churns and i'm.
plements are frequently washed with
hot water and scaldcd with dry steam.
The cream is always churned at the
same temperature, and the butter and
salt are alike carefully weighed before
mixing. All over the cemented floor
of the factory flows fresh spring water.
keeping the place always cool and