The Dairy Industry - Making Butter
The invention of a mechanised cream separator, allowing for cream to be taken off milk efficiently, changed the lives of dairy farmers. Previously milk was poured into shallow dishes to stand until the cream rose to the top and was then skimmed off by hand.
On the South Coast of NSW Separating Stations were established by cooperative groups of farmers but by the time the Tweed dairies were being established, the machinery had become more affordable so farmers separated the cream from the milk themselves.
Rather than wasting the skim milk that was a by-product of the process, the dairy farmers raised pigs and fed it to them. The pigs were then sent to the NORCO factory at Byron Bay to be butchered and turned into bacon, ham, sausages and other products.
As their farms produced more cream the local farmers pushed for factories to be established on the Tweed. Butter factories were opened up in Murwillumbah, Tweed Heads, Uki and Tyalgum.
At the factory the cream was weighed, tested for butterfat content, pasteurised, cooled and churned. The butter was salted, tested and packed into boxes for export. For local consumption, it was wrapped by hand in pound and half pound blocks and sold to grocers or sent back to the farmer via the cream carrier. Some farmers’ wives still preferred to make their own butter. A small domestic churn was kept in the dairy and used when needed to make as much as their family required.
The cream carriers who delivered cream to the butter factories also delivered food and other necessities to the isolated farming families.
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Alma's Story
We got our goods by the cream carriers. They would come three or four times a week and we would have to ring up and give the order for the bread and also the meat. … And you’d hear this poor old wagon with a tray on it and four horses and you’d hear it coming around the bend and the whip cracking and you’d know you’d have to go up and get the goods.”
Alma Milsom recalls the arrival of the cream carrier, c. the 1920s/30s,
Connery, M.L. (ed.) The Way it Was, 1987
Tweed River Regional Museum Research Collection
Did you know?
Most milking stools had three legs so that the person milking them could lean forward towards the cow without losing their balance. A stool with three legs is more stable on uneven ground than one with four legs.
Try This - Figure it out
- What is it made from?
- Was it handmade or made by a machine?
- What adjectives would you use to describe it?
- What would you use it for?
- What is it?
Download Activity - PDF 99KB
Make it yourself!
Making butter
You will need:
- Electric mixer or food processor
- measuring spoons
- Jug
- Plastic container to store butter in
- 500ml pure liquid cream
- salt
Method:
Place the cream in mixer.
Add quarter of a teaspoon of salt.
Beat at medium speed until it begins to come together, and then reduce mixing speed until firm.
The butter milk will have separated from the solid butter, pour this out of the mixing bowl into a jug and keep it for making pancakes or scones. Scoop the butter into an airtight container and store in the fridge.
Hint: Although the butter may be left unsalted for making sweet recipes (such as biscuits), salt helps to keep it fresh.
Download Activity - PDF 102 KB
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