The Walney Dairy

Before the Civil War, the Machen women and a slave named Sally made butter for the family in this room every week. By 1880 the farm was making butter for commercial sale and men did the work. Several shallow keelers filled with milk probably sat on work tables in the center of the room so cream could rise to the top within 24 hours. In the morning, cream was skimmed from the keelers and held in cans in the brick vat until ready for buttermaking. The Machens probably used a box or barrel churn, and after about 30 minutes of hard work, tiny bits of butterfat stuck together and separated from the buttermilk. The butter was then rinsed, worked with a paddle to remove more buttermilk, salted, pressed into a container, and decorated with a print from a buttermold. In the room on the right, cheesemaking tools probably included a cheese vat used to process milk, with a heater or stovepipe under the vat to heat the milk until it curdled and separated into solid curd and liquid whey. Curd knives cut the curd to release more whey, and the excess whey was probably drained from the vat and used for animal feed. After a second chopping, the curd was pressed into cloth-lined cheese hoops that gave the cheese its shape. The hoops were then placed in a four-station cheese press, which applied equal and increased pressure to squeeze out more whey. When pressing was complete, the cheese wheels were removed from the hoops and stored and aged before going to market.

Chantilly, Virginia · United States