Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1891 — THE BIGGEST. CREAMERY. [ARTICLE]

THE BIGGEST. CREAMERY.

Ten Thousand Ponnds of ButterTurned Out Daily. Ten thousand pounds of butter daily. This is the wholesale way in which the largest creamery in the world turns oat the golden product that melts with delicious flavor on your hot tea biscuits. Within a radius of twenty-six miles from St. Albans, says the Burlington. (Vt.) Free Press, are forty-four separate - stations, where the dairy farmer loaves - his milk for the Franklin County Creamery Association. After the cream is separated from the milk it is shippod by rail in a special oar to the creamery atSt. Alhans, and by undergoing various interesting prooossos is transformed; intobntter. Tho building is three stories high, with. . about nine thousand square feet of floor surface, situated on the main line of tbs Central Vermont Railroad. In tho cellar are a 40-horso-i)Ower engine, boiler room and tanks tor buttormiik. The first floor is devoted to receiving, separating the cream, churning, working, packing and shipping. In the second story is tho cream room, with ten large tanks holding 600 gallons of cream apiece;, testing room, offices and living room for the help. The third story is given OT«r to storing tubs, suit, boxes, etc. When tho cream reaches tho oreatnoiy it goes into a receiving tank on the first floor; from there it is pumped into storage vats in the second btori', where it is. “cured.” Then it is ready for the chum, and it is sent through a pipe into the - ohurning room, whore ten squaro Blanchard churns are almost constantly at work. Each churn churns 500 pounds of butter ut a time.

When the butter is taken from the churn it is sent to tho working room, where four Mason power workers are revolving. This is a novel sight—a round table about eight foot in diameter revolving under two conical rollers,, also constantly turning, whilo between the rollers and tho table is an inch of butter. Over each worker is a pan of ice and salt to cool tho eighty pounds of butter an. tho table. There is u man in charge of each worker, who works iu tho salt with a. paddle und sees that the buttermilk and, brine are thoroughly pressed out. Then it is taken to tho packing room and put Into different sized packs, from one-ounce prints to fifty-pound tubs, as tint trade demands, The butter is next taken to cold storage, and, whon roadjr for shipmout, is marked in tho refrigerator room by tho shipping olerk and pal into u refrigerator oar, thus reaching Boston and other New Englaudcitles without uny cliantro in temperature. There is a fascination, in watching tbs work of the chemist by which ho tolls just how much the milk of the different herds is worth. At the various station*, are ouses of pint jars, each jar having s> tin tag with two numbers, one to tfcssignnto tho station and the other the fanner. Four times during the week the men in. charge of the station puts in the pwtsaafa jar a small sample of eaoh herd's milk, and at the end of the week sends the jam to the laboratory for analysis. He carefully measures n small quantity of milk into a flask, adds acids to take out the curd, und puts it into a centrifugal machine to bring out the hotter fbc. . After revolving for u few moments ntv. 1,000 revolutions a minute, the butter fat ; has risen into the neck of the dock, . where tho percentage can be read easily, on a graduated scale. The average off-' butter fat in the milk is a trifle under 4 per cunt., but the extremes are 8.25 and 4.75. Tliis method demonstrates ahaouk absolutely the butter-making qualities uff the herd, und will raise the standard off cows wherever it is followed, as po dairymun will continue to keepoows that yield poor milk. The milk of 12,000 oows is made intobutter at this creamery; 10,000 pounds, of butter is the average dally product; Hi takes 400 tubs to hold this product; near load of salt is used every two months; sixty hands are employed by the assoebttion.