The Iowa plain dealer. [volume] (New Oregon, Howard County, Iowa) 1867-1895, 1891-07-30
LONGEVITY" or BUTTER.

MelnOO Oh preparing I'd insure DURABILITY.
Those who try to keep butter should
understand that it is never better than
when fresh-made. II it alters at all it
will involve expense, and the producer
must lose. He should consider also,
that old butter, even il sound. will not
bring SO much as new of the same grade.
The public taste is for fresh butter. At
this period of the worlds progress all
the large markets are supplied with
fresh butter the year round. Old but
ter, even If well preserved, must edge
its way into market with all chances
against it, and loaded with weight Of
prejudice besides. Extreme refrigera-
ton is neither required nor desirable,
as it affects both butter and eggs unfav-
orably. A temperature of about fifty
degrees is right, but no temperature
which any producer can maintain will
prevent all change through the heat of
summer. The most he has to hope for
is tokcep butter in fair condition for use.
Unskillfully made butter will not keep
under any condition, and the more
faulty the make the sooner it perishes.
II durability be desired the milk must
be good. and everything that concerns
its handling and management must be
clean and sweet, even the air which
vcntilates the room where it is set.
Cream must be fresh when churncd.
1t may be a little sour, but by no means
stale.
More than half the dairymaids injurc
the butter they make by not skimming
IN hvy fn%4 l,n
cream stand too long afterward. Stale
cream will not make good butter for
keeping. One may spoil it for keeping
by churning or working until it becomes
greasy, by churning the cream too
warm or too cold. or by having portions
of it of unequal ripeness, so that some
of it will come sooner than the rest and
be overturned. 1t should all come at
once. Churned into solid lump. but
ter will have its keeping quality i'm
paired. It is impossible to work the
buttcrmilk out of such mass of butter
and then work salt into il without
doing its grain injury. To secure lon
gcvity for butter, Jumping it must be
avoided. When SO far churncd that the
butter will rise readily to the top Of the
buttermilk, the contents of the churn
should be cooled till the butter will, by
little moderate churning. form into
pellets the size of wheat. Take it from
the churn In this form and rinse off
with cold water or brine all buttermilk
instead OF working it out. If in this
condition u is sealed alright, under
brine as strong as can he made and put
in a modcr ately cool place, it may he
kept year with hardly pcrceptiblc
change.
Whitc-oak casks may be used. They
should be thoroughly soaked in brine.
filled with boiling-hot brine, and left
standing till cold. A false head. soaked
and scalded the same as the cask and
covered with bleachcd muslin, should
be laid into the cask. Support one inch
from the bottom by three wooden pins
fasten it down to prevent floating. the
space between the two heads having
first being filled with salt. The butter,
in the form Of pellets, should be placed
in the cask as soon as the buttermillS
has been rinsed of it and kept under
the strcng brine till enough butter has
been made to fill the casl. 1t is then
to be headed. the end with the false
head turned up, hole bored in it, and
strong brine filed in till it rises to the
top Of the head. Then the hole must be
plugged. II the brine settles by soak
ing into the slaves or evaporating more
should be poured in occasionally tokeep
1t above the butter. Thus prepared il
may be expected to keep in good order
year after heading up. When it is to
! be sold the head which was taken out
at first should be removed, and the but.
ter. without any sailing pressed into
the form desired for use or market.
The above treatment will take up more
room and cost little more than by
packing solid. but there is no way in
which it will keep SO we'll. The same
casks can be used several years. or SO
long AS they can be kept tight. The
| pnrest salt only should be used for
making the brine: il not pure and the
butter is kept long it will lose color
A Veteran Dairyman, in Tribune.