Making Butter

May 18, 1937  John and I hoed in the garden.  Mary baked and churned butter.  Mama is still sick.

The Siemens and all farmers churned their own butter.  They had a gallon jar with a lid that had a crank and paddles on it.  They filled the churn with cream that was a just a little sour, because Margaret said that made the best butter, and then put the churn in a pan of cold water to keep it cool.  In fact, the best butter is made from unpasteurized cream that has set for several days in a cool place so that it can culture, using the natural bacteria in the milk and the room.  This produces cultured butter, which is more flavorful and with higher butterfat than the sweet cream butter that is available in the stores. 

Then someone would crank the paddles until the cream would start to turn to butter, which would take at least half an hour and sometimes more.  The buttermilk would be poured off and was used for baking cakes and pancakes, cooking noodles and pearl barley, and even was drunk straight from the churn.  Then the butter had to be rinsed to remove any remaining lactose and proteins and was pressed in a butter mold.

The diet of the cows affected the flavor and color of the butter.  In fact, in the days before butter was made on an industrial scale, each creamery or farm was known for having a particular flavor to its butter.  Wheat pasture made the butter taste bad, so when the cattle were on wheat, the Siemens would only make butter from morning milk when the cows had eaten grain during the night.  During winter when the cows could not eat green plants, the butter was white, so Margaret would shred carrots and press the juice out of them to color the butter yellow.

Dazey butter churn like the Siemens had.