How the Danes Salt their Butter.

Opunake Times, Volume I, Issue 44, 30 November 1894, Page 4

How the Danes Salt their Butter.

As soon as tbe buttermilk has been removed the butter is weighed in order to calculate the amount of salt required, and the salt is worked in at this time, always on the butter-worker. Sometimes it is put in at one working, and in other places it is preferred to add it in two workings. The amount of salt used is not uniform. It is adapted to the taste of tbe market where it is expected to be sold ;‘but it varies between 4 and 5 per cent of the weight of the butter. The salt is' not weighed, but measured in a large glass with a scale graduated to grammes on tbe side, 5 grammes being equal to 1 per cent. Usually the butter is sold to butterdealers, who handle it either on commission or they buy it right out on their own account. These dealers are supposed to know the wants of the market, and it is customary to accept their instructions in regard to the amount of salt and color to be added to tbe butter. The salt is worked into the butter with tbe least possible amount of handling, and it is then laid aside before tbe next working takes place. In summer it is put in butter-coolers,

which are a sort of ice-box. In winter itnuay simply be laid in large rolls in the butter trough or on a table provided for the purpose. It lies here for at least two hours in the cold season, and when the weather is warm it may lay for eight or ten hours, Or even until the cool of the following morning, before it receives the final working. The object is not only to cool the butter, and thus also to allow it to become firmer, but also to allow the salt to dissolve and to pene trate the whole mass. When it has attained the proper degree of firmness, it is again put under the butter worker, and the last buttermilk and a considerable portion of the brine from the salt are worked out. How much working it can stand differs much in individual cases. Care is taken, however, that it is not the least Lit overworked, so as to become greasy and sticky. This working may be repeated a couple of times, or it may be packed for shipment at once ; practice is not uniform on this point. It is common, however, to give it one more working an hour or two later. The main point is not to work it until it has become decidedly firm, and then to work it only to the extent it can bear without injuring the grain, and yet remove as much as possible of the brine which has formed from the dissolving salt. It is worthy of notice that, although 4 per cent of salt may be added, with proper working about half of this is removed in the form of brine.