THE FARM.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 10 July 1914, Page 7

THE FARM.

A NEW METHOD FOR DETERMTN"-

ING FAT AND SAJLT IN BUTTER

Secretary Wilson, of the Department of Agriculture, calls attention to a new test for fat and salt in butter.

This test was invented by Roscoe H. Shaw, Chemist in the Dairy Division, and is especially designed for use in creameries. The circular explains the, apparatus in detail and gives complete instructions for operating the test, placing in the hands of practical creamerymen a simple, rapid, and accurate method

by which can be determined the percentage of fat and salt in butter, and which, in connection with one of the reliable moisture tests already in use, makes possible the complete analysis of butter right before the churn.

The new test for fat will probably not require more than £1 worth of apparatus beside that already on hand in most creameries. The same centrifuge is used as in the Babcock test, and the same acid.

The special apparatus consists .of a separatory funnel of glass with a capillary stem. The separatory funnel is essentially a cylinder holding about two and a half ounces, constructed with a glass stopper at the top and a stop-cock in a capillary tube at the bottom. A special socket is necessary to hold the funnel while in the centrifuge.

The principal steps involved in the test are : The washing out of the

salt from a weighted charge of the butter with hot water, the dissolving1 out of the curd with hot dilute sulphuric acid, the separation of the acid solution from the fat and the weighing of the fat. When the salt test is to be made the wash water is collected and the salt in it determined by the usual chemical reaction.

The time consumed in making the fat test is not much, if any, more than is required to make a careful test for fat in cream by the Babcock method. A little more time is required if the percentage of salt is wanted.

The new test has been thoroughly tried out in comparison with the official laboratory methods, and is quite in accord with them in results. —U.S. Department of: Agriculture.