Cream Separator
The Cream Separator was a common feature on dairy farms. Today, the dairies collect the milk by tanker truck and process it at the dairy, but in times gone by the dairy would just collect the cream, especially from smaller farms, so the milk would have to be separated at the farm.
Generally the job would be given to one of the children - two of our people at the museum can remember doing it, with one liking it and the other hating it.
Fresh milk is strained into the top 'can' through a piece of cloth. There are a group of discs with small holes in inside the machine which separate the cream from the skim when the handle is turned. It works by centrifugal action. There is a big flywheel attached, which makes it harder to start the machine but easier to keep going. The pace of turning was important - a child generally learned from a parent and was able quite quickly to judge the sound and feel of the right pace. This model has a small bell attached halfway along the handle to ring every turn to help with the judgement.
The cream would emerge from one of the spouts into a pail, and the skimmed milk from the other spout into a larger churn. Milk could be added to the can as needed in a continuous process (earlier models could only do a batch at a time).
The cream could then be sent to the dairy, or made into butter at the farm if desired. The skimmed milk was usually fed to the pigs.
The worst part was having to clean the discs afterwards, then they would be hung on a special hanger to dry. Making a pail of cream might typically take an hour and a half, and be done perhaps 3 times a week. Our former farm boy says that cream separating was his main job, with checking the cattle feed and keeping the wood box full his only other jobs.
These machines are still manufactured and in use on some organic farms and smallholdings, though they are often motor-powered now.
Generally the job would be given to one of the children - two of our people at the museum can remember doing it, with one liking it and the other hating it.
Fresh milk is strained into the top 'can' through a piece of cloth. There are a group of discs with small holes in inside the machine which separate the cream from the skim when the handle is turned. It works by centrifugal action. There is a big flywheel attached, which makes it harder to start the machine but easier to keep going. The pace of turning was important - a child generally learned from a parent and was able quite quickly to judge the sound and feel of the right pace. This model has a small bell attached halfway along the handle to ring every turn to help with the judgement.
The cream would emerge from one of the spouts into a pail, and the skimmed milk from the other spout into a larger churn. Milk could be added to the can as needed in a continuous process (earlier models could only do a batch at a time).
The cream could then be sent to the dairy, or made into butter at the farm if desired. The skimmed milk was usually fed to the pigs.
The worst part was having to clean the discs afterwards, then they would be hung on a special hanger to dry. Making a pail of cream might typically take an hour and a half, and be done perhaps 3 times a week. Our former farm boy says that cream separating was his main job, with checking the cattle feed and keeping the wood box full his only other jobs.
These machines are still manufactured and in use on some organic farms and smallholdings, though they are often motor-powered now.
