Cream Separation has been around for thousands of years, both in industry and in the home. Our ancestors knew that if letting milk stand, it would eventually separate out into milk and cream by earth’s gravity. But it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that the process was mechanized and hand cranked cream separators took the lead. 

Since the days of those first hand-cranked separators, technology rapidly developed but the principles remained the same. Shown is a variation of a gravity cream separation, known as a cream setter. 

The owner would pour one pail of milk into the top and add one pail of water and was left to stand overnight — 12 hours. In the morning, opening the spigot on the bottom and watching the liquid in the window, the skim milk would drain and only the cream would remain. - Photo supplied by the National Historical Cheesemaking Center