References to butter are found in the Old Testament. In the past, butter was an article of commerce and a sign of wealth.
The earliest details of method of manufacture are derived from the Arabs and Syrians and the process have remained unchanged for centuries. The original practice of the Arabs and Syrians, was to use vessel made from goatskin for a churn. The animal was skinned, the skin sewed up tight, leaving an opening only at the left foreleg, where the cream was poured in. The “churn” was then suspended from the tent poles and swung until the “butter comes.”
The Scythians and the Greeks used butter in the 5th Century B.C. In Europe the making of butter for food was probably introduced very early through Scandinavia.
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, factory butter making was unknown. Most of the butter was made on the farm from cream obtained by gravity creaming.
Butter making was introduced into America in 1607 by the Jamestown colonists, who brought the first dairy cows. The first step in producing butter is to separate the cream from the milk. This was done by placing the milk in pans to let the cream rise to the top.
Even in the 19th century, butter was still made from cream that had been allowed to stand and sour naturally. The cream was then skimmed from the top of the milk and poured into a wooden tub.
Butter making was done by hand in butter churns. The natural souring process is, however, a very sensitive one and infection by foreign micro-organisms often spoiled the result. Dasher type churns were in use by the Hindus long before the Christian era.
Traditionally a farm product, the mass productions of butter began with the invention of the mechanical cream separator in the late 19th century. In the 1860s creameries opened in America, mass producing and selling butter and cheese.
History of butter making process
