Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1873 — When Should Milk Be Skimmed? [ARTICLE]

When Should Milk Be Skimmed?

Many dairymen who; make excellent; butter contend that better results are obtained by allowing the cream to acquire a slightly acid taste than to churn it sweet; but this acid condition of the cream must not be confounded, however, with sourness, which is altogether different and arises from different causes, such as standing too long, or from a close atmosphere, or from‘badly cleansed utensils, or from a general want of care and cleanliness. X. A. Willard writes: When milk is allowed to sour before it is skimmed, the layer of cream appears more bulky and of greater consistency, but it does not produce so much nor so good a quality of butter as cream properly raised and skimmed from milk before it sours. On this point we possess sonic interesting cxperimentsTiySannet, who put aside two equal quantities of milk, of which the first, skimmed after thirty’ hours, yielded thirty pounds of butter, and the second, skimmed after a lapse of sixty hours, only twenty-seven pounds of butter. In another experiment two equal quantities of milk yielded—the one When skimmed after thirty hours, thirty-one pounds of butter; and the other, after sixty hours, twenty-nihe pounds of butter. In both experiments, in which the rriilk was skimmed after thirty hours’ standing, the skimmed milk was still sweetj? and the cream not so thick and Jess in bulk than that which was thrown up after sixty hours’ standing. The cream which arisesffirst is always richer in butter than that which is thrown -up later, and it also possesses more of that peculiar aroma which gives to butter that rich nutty flavor and smell which impart so high a degree of pleasure in eating it. When proper regard has been had to keeping the milk at tlie right temperature while the cream is rising, and the proper appliances are had in the dairy, al! the cream that will rise at all will have tocome to the surface in about twenty-four hours. Some claim that they can get it all up in less time. Of one thing we maybe assured—the quicker cream can be made to rise the better its quality; for cfeam, like all perishable substances, does not preserve its original for anv great length of time. The'best as well as the highest-priced butter that now goes into the London market comes from tlie Continent of Europe, where the greatest attention is paid to butter making. In Holstein one of the points considered most essential in butter-making is to skim the milk just at the proper moment; and this must always take place before the milk can become sour. Choice,'keepable butter can only .result when the milk has beenkepUsweet, as the souring...develops. curds. The Orange countyliutter-makers observe this principle; and The* experience of the best butter-makers, both in this country and in Europe, appears to have settled down upon this principle as the correct one to practice. But while the cream should be taken from the milk before it is sour, the cream, on the contrary, is allowed to have a pleasant acid taste‘before churning.— New York Herald.