device for making butter. The earliest churns were goatskins or other primitive containers in which cream could be agitated. The dash churn, familiar to farm homes for centuries, consisted of a tall, narrow, nearly cylindrical stone or wood tub fitted with a wooden cover; the cream was agitated by a hand-operated vertical wooden plunger, or dash. Another type, widely used in the 19th century, was shaped like a small barrel and mounted in a framework. Operation of a hand crank caused the barrel to revolve end over end.

Modern industrial churns are large, barrel-shaped, revolving containers in which the cream is agitated until the microscopic fat globules clump together. The liquid (buttermilk) is drained, and the butter is washed with sterilized water. Continuous churns, developed in Europe in the 1930s, can produce a ton of butter per hour.