Tap the Cream Line

from Modern Mechanix, Sept. 1935

Welcome to the cream line observer. What is the cream line? Your grandparents knew this term and most likely judged the milk they bought by this. Now with homogenization, the cream line is all but gone in grocery store milk (unless you're lucky like we are to have a local dairy that provides pasteurized milk to a few grocery stores around town). The cream line is the line in a container of milk that separates where the cream that rises to the top settles on the milk. Once upon a time, that used to be between 4.8% and 5.2% of the volume of the milk; now it is standardized at 3.5 - 4% (that's whole milk). Thanks to my herdshare family farmer and her pasture-raised cows, the milk my family drinks sees a cream line at about 1/4-1/3 from the top of the 1/2 gallon container (even in winter!).

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