How to Make Good Butter
Have the milk closet on the coolest side of the house, or in the dryest and coolest part of the cellar, and with a window in it covered with wire net or slats. Good butter cannot be made without a free circulation of fresh air. Allow no drops of cream or milk to remain a day on the shelves. Every inch of such a closet must be kept perfectly clean.
Strain the milk as soon as it is brought in, and set it immediately in its place. To remove milk after the cream has begun to rise prevents its rising freely. For the same reason the smallest quantity should not be taken from a pan set for raising cream, therefore all the milk wanted for the day's use must be set apart from the other pans. Those who have ice through the summer, have a valuable aid in making good butter. A piece as large as a peach should be put into a pan containing 3 quarts of milk, as soon as it is placed in the closet. The milk will not sour as soon, and of course will afford more cream. Skim the cream as soon as the milk has become loppord, which will in hot weather, be in about thirty hours. To do this, first pass the forefinger around the edge of the pan (this is better than to use the skimmer, because there is a hard, wiry edge of cream adhering to the pan which if taken off will injure the butter); then take off the cream, clear as possible from the milk.
In very hot weather, especially in August, which is the least favorable month for making butter, 1 heaping teaspoonful of salt should be put into 1 pailful of milk, after the portion for the ordinary family use is taken out; and at all seasons, fine salt should be put into the cream from day to day, as it is gathered. The effect of this is excellent, in keeping it sweet and giving a rich flavor to the butter.
The finest butter is made where the number of cows renders it necessary to churn every day. The custom of churning once a week is not to be tolerated. Cream that is kept 7 days, unless it be in the coldest weather, cannot be made into good butter. If you keep but one cow, churn twice a week, and in dog days, 3 times. Do it in the cool of the morning. If the weather is warm, set the churn into a tub of cold water, add ice if you have it, and put a piece also into the churn.
Air is necessary to make butter come, therefore, if the cream flies out of the opening around the dasher, do not put anything around it to prevent it. When the butter has come, continue the strokes of the dasher a few minutes to separate all the little particles from the buttermilk. This done, take it out into the wooden bowl with a ladle or skimmer. The bowl and ladle should have boiling water poured on them when you first begin to churn. After a few minutes it should be poured off, and cold water be poured on them, and they should stand till you are ready to use them. This is to prevent the butter from sticking to them.
Work the butter with the ladle, until the buttermilk ceases to come out; then sprinkle it with clean sifted salt, as that which was put into the cream will not be enough. Work it in well, and taste it to see if more should be added. Observation and experience must teach you how much to use. Mold the butter with the ladle into balls or lumps of any form you prefer; put it into a covered jar or tureen and set it in the icehouse or cellar or cool side of the house.
Butter is sweetest to be worked but once, and if all which you make is used from week to week, it is sufficient, provided it comes hard, if it is soft at first, it must be worked again the next morning. That which is to be laid down for future use, or to be kept 2 to 3 weeks, must be worked again after 1 or 2 days, and every particle of buttermilk must be got out. Never work butter a third time.