BUTTERMAKING DIFFICULTIES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 142, 22 July 1926, Page 3

BUTTERMAKING DIFFICULTIES.

TO ELIMINATE FLAVOURS. The Question of Manuring. Problem Awaiting Solution. While the Morrinsville Co-op. Dairy Co. has installed a plant which is calculated to overcome the feed flavours in butter manufacture, the view is taken that if these flavours could be eliminated by the treatment of the pastures it would be not only more economical but also better for the quality of the manufactured article. For this reason the Department of Agriculture is looked to to render some help in suggesting and experimenting with some method of manuring which would not affect the producing capacity of the pastures but would give a growth to produce a cream more free from the flavours than at present exists. The suggestion is on the lines of the old adage, •< Prevention is better than cure.” Several butter factories in and around Morrinsville have been labouring under the feed flavour difficulty for some time and the position will become more acute when the compulsory control regulations and payment on grade come into force. Consequently at least one of these companies, the Morrinsville Co-op. Dairy Co., is now making great endeavours to cope with these flavours. Further to the question put to Professor Riddet at his recent meeting at Moirinsville, Mr. A. M. Stirling, manager of the Morrinsville Company’s factory, has written to the professor asking him if he will give the problem some consideration. Mr. Stirling was not present at the professor’s address on account of an Arbitration Court engagement interfering. Mr. Stirling has written to Processor Riddet in the following term.-- “ The question of the results r.t- ! tending the manuring of land is one of deep interest to me. It is, I be-_ lieve, almost axiomatic now that the ' country in this district cannot be made ! to produce economically in the ab- j sence of fairly heavy topdressing, and it is further understood that the phos- | phates usually used favour and in- j duce the luxuriant growth of the j clovers and trefoils. Where anything 1 approaching an excess of the latter j is found in the pastures, as is generally the case in, say, a 12-mile radius of Morrinsville, if has been clearly . noted that a strong-flavoured milk ! and cream results. “In cheesemaking this particular 1 taint appears to be largely overcome ! l—or covered up—but in buttermaking * it remains a major problem awaiting solution. u Working on the' assumption that the essential oils producing this heavy and rather unpleasant flavour in our cream are of a more or less volatile nature, we are now directing our attention to a system of pasteurising which will permit of the escape of these, emphasis being placed on the fact that we are doing so at the point of highest temperature, which we believe to be also the point of greatest chemical reaction between the acid in the cream and the neutralising agent (bi-carb. of soda) added. This we think should have the desired effect where gases of this nature can be expelled at atmospheric pressure, but should this prove insufficient it may become necessary to adept a machine working under vacuum. “ Before, however, going to all this expense we feel that we should call on your department, or branch of the industry, to ascertain by research if some modified form of manuring cannot be evolved to ensure both quantity and quality—the equivalent, let us say, of what is produced from paspalum country. “ On the other hand, if this cannot be done, then we would welcome criticism on what we are already doing and on the trend of our thoughts on the mechanical means of overcoming these difficulties we are now trying out.” Some of the difficulties encountered in connection with the feed flavours were outlined by Mr. Stirling during a criticism of the Control Board’s regulations as detailed last week by Mr. W. M. Singleton, Director of the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture. The regulations provide for compulsory cream grading, the superfine cream to be judged on what the grader considers could be made into butter that would grade 44 ( Continued in Next Column. 1

points (finest first grrde) for flavour. In most other districts, particularly North Auckland, commented Mr. Stirling, he would think that these regulations would be quite acceptable from the companies’ points of view, but in the Morrinsville district the feed accounts for flavours for which the supplier could hardly be penalised. From a condition point of view, he said that 95 per cent, of the cream that came into the Morrinsville «factory was superfine, but unfortunately from the point of view of the new standard it was doubtful whether so much could be so classified. Generally speaking the cream at the Morrinsville factory arrived in excellent condition but nevertheless it had the disability of being somewhat stronger in flavour than that which was most desirable for the manufacture of butter to grade the highest points. These flavours, he said, could not he confused with that from turnips : this was an entirely different matter.