BUTTER MAKING.

Patea Mail, 15 February 1881, Page 3

BUTTER MAKING.

The cause of poor butter is not on account of developing a slight acidity in the cream before churning, but from a great variety of causes which dairymen should fully understand (says the American Dairyman'). They are—first, bad milk ; setting milk in impure atmospheres ; allowing it to absorb the fumes of the stable and other noxious emanations ; and second, overchurning and overworking so as to injure the grain. Also, leaving buttermilk in the butter; for the casein, on exposure to the air in a moist state, especially in warm weather, becomes rapidly changed into a ferment, which, acting on the volatile fatty matters of butter, resolves them into glycerine and butyric acid, caproic acid, and caprylic acid. We believe that cream should be obtained as soon as possible from milk, and before the milk becomes old and decomposed ; but the idea that the cream is rotten where a slight acidity is developed, we should be sorry to have dairymen accept unchallenged. The point which we desire to make is not that we are opposed to making butter from sweet cream, but rather to correct the inference that a development of slight acidity in cream is the cause of poor butter. The makers of poor butter must look for the causes in a different direction.