FISHY FLAVOUR IN BUTTER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 450, 23 March 1912, Page 6

FISHY FLAVOUR IN BUTTER.

In a recent article on this subject, in the Agricultural Journal, Messrs Reakes and Eeid give some valuable hints as to the possible causes of this flavour, which has so far baffled the experts to explain. Wbilat they do not claim that their results reveal all the causes of fishy flavour, they give at any rate one cause, which is over ripening of the cream before it is made into butter. They conclude by saying:— "The results were most conclusive in that the greater degree of acidity in the cream and butter the more pronounced was the taint of fishiness, clearly proving that the over ripening of cream is highly dangerous to the quality of the resultant butter. It is not claimed, however, that the high acidity in cram is the direct cause of this season's defect called 'fishiness' in butter, but the experiment proved that over acidity is evidently a very important contributing factor. "The average acidity of the cream which made the good keeping butter was 0.318 per cent., whilst the average acidity of the cream which made the fishy butter was 0.40 per cent. It would appear from the tests that the butter contains one half the acid developed in the cream." Here, therefore, we may look first whenever the fishiness is complained of. Was the cream over ripened? The extent of acid in cream is easily tested. But it is often too left to the taste and hence we get complaints which are traceable to the maker.