The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1890-12-31


and pure water, keep yourself and your
surroundings clean while handling the
product, from the udder to the butter
tub, and you will never be troubled
with the "animal odor." Another
ghost has been laid, another witch +"
has disappeared.
WASHING BUTTER.
Abundant experiment has shown that
the natural flavor of butter can not be
removed by washing it with pure
water. Careful manipulation, with the
cream and everything else just right,
will make good butter without washing.
But the extra trouble is wasted
THE "GRAIN " OF BUTTER.
When the butter has "come," and
appears in little irregular masses, from
pins head to a large pea in size, is
the time to draw off the buttermilk
and wash the butter in the churn.
This removes most of the buttermik.
After being then gathered and removed
from the churn, worked, washed and
sailed on the butter-worker at the
proper temperature, we find upon
breaking it that it has a granular look.
The mass seems to be made of little
particles with a slightly glistening APP
pearance. This is called the 4" grain"
These small particles are partially kept
apart by films of water (after sailing
this water becomes brine), and the pc
culiar texture thus impaired to the but
ter is a test of proper manufacture.
Overchurn or overwork it, churn or
work it at the wrong temperature, and
the grain is gone, never to be restored,
and with it is gone a large percentage
of the selling value of the butter.
Enough water (brine) must be retained
to produce this appearance, which dis
tinguishes butter" from grease.n
Consequently, the most perfect grain
is obtained by washing in the churn
before the butter is " gathered.n
THE BUTTER GLoBULE.
To those who know nothing of the
microscope and its revelations, world
remains hidden of which they can have
little comprehension. To the naked
eye milk appears smooth, uniform
fluid. To the eye, added by the com
bination of magnifying glasses, called
" microscope" (seer of little things),
it is translucent fluid, in which float
a multitude of shining globes, and these
globes are butter in its primitive state.
We do not make butter when we churn.
although we say so. When the process
of churning has been continued until
we can see little particles of butter in
the cream, we say the butter has
come" and the next proceeding (after
washing) is to gather it," But, in
reality, churning is single process
There is no difference between the
coming" and the gathering" eX-
cept that the latter is visible, while the
former is invisible to the unaided sight.
All that we do when we agitate cream
in churn is to throw the butter glob-
ules strongly against each other. If
the cream is too cold, we may do this
forever and produce no butter, for the
same reason that we cannot work but
ter into rolls or prints when it is too
cold. The globules are too hard to stick
together. They merely rattle against
one another in the churlt, like peas in
bag, If the cream is too warm, we
can churn them together aid then churn
them apart again, because they are in
too fluid state to hold together against
the action of the churn. So no butter
comes in either case--there are " witches
in the cream" The true exorcist in
such trouble is thermometer.