IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF MILK FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BUTTER, & IN APPARATUS FOR THE SAME
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Kelly at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition; on the 13th December
1861.
I, JOHN KELLY, of Brook Lodge, in the County of Roscommon, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF MILK FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BUTTER, & IN
APPARATUS FOR THE SAME," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to an improved mode of manufacturing butter by
means of a dairy range. The advantages, which are of an economical, dietetic,
and commercial character, may be stated to effect a saving of labour, the
production of a larger quantity and a better quality of butter, and calculated
to awaken a spirit of improvement in the manufacture of butter in the dairy
districts, which will not fail in leading to high results. It is a well known fact
that butter is far from being so uniformly good, wholesome, and palatable as it
should be, and that the quantity of butter yielded is partly dependent on the
temperature at which the milk is kept previous to and during the process of
churning the milk. Vessels most commonly used are made of wood, and wood
being liable to decay, becomes soft, and after scouring and scalding, retain
a foulness, which is communicated to the milk, and consequently deteriorates
the quality of the butter. By this Invention the milk is preserved in
milk vessels of glass or earthenware in its natural temperature of 52
degrees from the time it is taken from the cows until the butter is
made, that is, from three to four days, which it takes to ripen, and kept
entirely free from a tainted atmosphere, vermin, and all other impurities.

page_text: The process of churning in a lever churn, which is to be in connection with
the dairy range, will occupy only a few minutes, as there is nearly a spon-
taneous separation of the butter from the whey and milk (owing to its being
kept of a uniform temperature, and no derangement of the chemical process of
butter forming occurs. The buttermilk is drawn off by a tap in the end of
the churn, the butter washed and purified from milk by cold spring water
salted and made in the churn with very little manipulation, by which the sweetest
butter that can be possibly made is produced, a great desideratum to the com-
munity at large, as no article of manufacture of such extensive consumption
is so liable to contamination from imperceptible foulness, over which the dairy
maid has no control.
The milk vessels are placed in water-tight pans of cast iron or other metal,
which are placed close together in frames of a convenient height of the same
material, with a tube passing through the pans immediately under the milk
vessels, and in large dairies may be connected with the boiler that steams food
for the cows in winter, or with any other convenient mode, to keep the milk
up to the aforesaid temperature of 52 degrees by steam or hot water in the
tube, and in summer connected with a pump or cistern of cold spring water,
so that the water will rise to the verge of the milk vessels, and keep the
milk cool and down to the same temperature of 52 degrees; this is effected
by means of taps or cocks in the tubes inside in the pans, which are turned to
allow the water to flow into the pans, which may be drawn off when it gets
soft by taps or cocks in the pans, and renewed occasionally when the milk is
put into the milk vessels, which are to contain about eight quarts each; the
pans which contain them are covered with air-tight lids, which prevent any
foulness from getting into the milk.
In small dairies the aforesaid uniform temperature in winter can be kept up
by hot water, and in summer kept down by cold spring water put into the
pans when the milk is put into the milk vessels, and previous to the lids being
put on and after, a clean cloth put over the lids, and kept moist with cold
spring water.