The Champion Churn
On the subject of barrel churns the "Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture", published in 1914 states:

"The barrel churn is an old one and it still retains a greater hold than any other on the fancy of dairymaids.

Under various adaptations, of which the end-over-end form is the principal, the barrel churn has not only survived all recent changes in dairy equipment, but is now more firmly established than ever before. The barrel shaped body has long been acknowledged as the ne plus ultra in the lager churns for hand power, nor is it discarded in churns for power beyond that of an arm or pair of arms.

The churn is constructed as an “end over end” churn, its line of axis being from side to side through the greatest diameter, to which the axle bosses are attached. The lid of this churn forms one of its two ends, and it is not unpopular in some places, though it does not contain any beaters, the required agitation being obtained by the repeated tumbling of cream from one end to the other, and almost immediately back again. Ordinarily this type of churn answers fairly well with ripened cream, but is almost useless with cream inclined to be ‘sleepy’, which is not uncommonly the case.

The salient object of churning is to liberate from the milk the butter-fat which is held in suspension therein, and this is realised by the combined manual and mechanical act and process of churning. Looking at the flattened drop of milk under the microscope tiny luminous orbs are revealed (cream globules). The violent agitation and concussion to which cream is subjected in the process of churning liberates butter from cream and enables it to float on the surface of buttermilk when at rest exactly as cream has previously floated on skim milk in cream raising. By merely standing at rest, milk allows its cream to rise to the surface, as an act of separation; but agitation – thrashing – concussion is necessary to induce cream to give up its butter in the act of churning.

There is some licence permitted in the speed of barrel churns, in regard to the season of the year, temperature of the air, ripeness of the cream and so on; but the fact remains that barrel churns are at their best when going in 45-50 revolutions. Training and practice are required to make anyone expert in all the points that have their weight and purpose in the dairy."

Pupils of Kirkhill Primary 4 using the churn.

Pictures of happy and sad farmers and cows by Andrew (5) and Andrew H. (also 5).

We looked at the Champion Churn and compared its use with the much smaller Blow Churn.

We found out that using the smaller hand churn it takes around 2 hours to make butter from cream, compared with from 20 minutes to 1 hour with the Champion Churn. We thught anyone using a small hand churn would get tired pretty quickly when using it, and from this idea we developed our advertisement.

As the Champion Churn is a fairly big and costly piece of equipment we wondered about the type of person who would have bought it. We thought it would have most likely been bought by somebody with a fairly big farm who wanted to make large quantities of butter, probably to sell.

We came up with the idea of having a dairymaid using the small churn to make butter. She is sad, tired and sore because she has been working for over two hours churning the cream without any success. Her sadness fills the whole farm, because she is sad all the animals and the farmer are sad too. However all this changes when the farmer invests in a brand new Champion Churn.

Pictures of cows by Charlotte, and Cristina H. (3).

Pictures of happy and sad ducks and cows by Bréagh (7).
The voiceover was provided by Ross (7).

About the Project

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Castor Oil