Care of Milk and Cream.
Milk and all the products of milk require the most careful attention. Thorough cleanliness and good ventilation are absolutely necessary. Milk, butter, and cream quickly absorb any odors that there may be near by. If possible, one room or pantry should be kept exclusively for the dairy products. If this be impossible keep one side of the room—that nearest the window—for this purpose. Never put strong-odored or warm food in this room. Keep the room scrupulously clean and dry. Every utensil that is used about milk in any form must be first washed in cold water, then in hot suds, and finally scalded in clear, boiling water. Wipe perfectly dry with towels that are kept for this purpose, and that are washed and scalded every day. Now put the utensils out in the sun. If the day be wet, put them by an open window to air. The milk, cream, butter, etc., that come from such a dairy cannot fail to be of a superior quality.
When the milk is brought in, pour it through a fine strainer into the pans, and then set the pans in place. If at any time it be necessary to mix the night and morning milk, cool the fresh milk before it is added to the older milk. Adding warm milk to cold milk will cause the whole mass to spoil quickly.
When the cream is being collected for butter making, it must not be kept so long that it becomes very sour, or in winter until it becomes bitter. Have a stone jar in which the cream can be kept. In summer keep it in the coldest place you have, but in winter it must be kept where it will become slightly sour, without becoming bitter. Old butter-makers advise skimming the cream as free as possible from milk. Every time a batch of cream is added to that in the jar, stir the contents of the jar, in order to mix thoroughly the new and old cream.
The cream should not be allowed to remain on the milk until sour. Skim it while both milk and cream are sweet.