"BUTTER PLEASE”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1938, Page 8

"BUTTER PLEASE”

MASTERTON’S MODERN FACTORY DIRECTORS’ PROGRESSIVE POLICY. EXCELLENT GRADING RETURNS. Some indications of the part the Masterton Co-operative Dairy Co. plays in the community may be gauged from the fact that this month the company will distribute to its hundreds of suppliers the sum of £17,500 for supplies received in November. The company is paying Is 2d per lb for butterfat. Suppies are keeping up well and local sales are very satisfactory. A most pleasing feature of the season's operations is that to date the grading has been 94 and over, which means that the company receives payment for its butter at the highest rate obtainable—that for superfine grade. This is a matter of considerable satisfaction not only to the directors and suppliers but to the staff as well. If the weather this season continues to be as favourable as it has been so far, she company has every reason to expect an increase in the output of butter compared with that of last year. The position attained by the company has been made possible by the progressive policy adopted by the directors in keeping the factory up-to-date and in line with the most modern and approved practice for the manufacture of butter. This has entailed considerable expense, over a period of several years, in the way of enlargements to the building and the installation of the latest available plant. The factory today may well claim to be one of the most modern and best equipped in New Zealand and the excellent results achieved indicate (hat the policy of the directorate has been on the right lines. NOISE, WATER & STEAM. Few people realise the work entailed in the production of butter to meet present-day requirements. It is not so many years ago since butter was made on the farm by manual labour in a comparatively simple way. and the intricacies of manufacture by machinery afford an interesting comparison with the former practice. Nowadays nothing is left to chance; every precaution is taken to see that the product is of the highest standard and meets the requirements stipulated by law. A factory during working hours is as noisy as a foundry, while water seems to be flowing everywhere on'the floor and steam is to be seen rising around the receiving platform. It is no wonder that the employees wear gum boots. Let us take a peep at the working of the factory. Motor lorries which make a daily collection of cream deliver the cans, on which the supplier’s number appears together with the weight of the can, alongside the receiving platform, where the cans are promptly shifted with considerable noise in readiness for weighing. The cans are taken off the lorries in the rotation of numbers, as this ensures more orderly work in the keeping of the records. After the can and its contents are weighed the cream is graded in the can. It is finest, first or second grade. Anything below. second grade is rejected, coloured and sent back to the supplier. The finest grade is kept separate from the other grades. After grading, samples are taken from each can and placed in each supplier’s bottle for the butterfat test, which is carried out every ten days. Suppliers, it will be remembered. are paid according to the butterfat content of their cream. CAN-WASHING MACHINE. The cream is tipped into the neutralising vats, which are made of staybright steel, the very latest in dairy equipment, and the cans are up-ended so that a jet of steam cleans out all cream remaining therein, this being caught in the first and second grade vat. After the cans are steamed for this purpose, they are placed in the can-washing machine, in which boiling water and a washing solution are brought to bear on the can. which revolves in the machine, a jet spraying the water into the can and all round it. Further on in its course in the same machine, jets of steam are sprayed over the can, which is thus healed up and sterilised and comes out dry. After the cream has been placed in the neutralising vats it is tested for acidity. It is necessary to maintain a fairly low acidity in order to ensure Keeping qualities. If the cream is high in acidity it is neutralised. As a general rule finest cream seldom needs treatment, as it usually fulfils requirements. On the other hand first and second grade cream generally show as much as .2 or .3 per cent acidity as compared with .1 per' cent for finest. Neutralisation is accomplished by adding bicarbonate of soda or some alkaline substance. Pasteurisation is the next process through which the cream passes. The first pasteurising machine heats the cream gradually to IGO or 170 degrees Fahrenheit. It then goes to the second unit but here it only requires a slight amount of extra heat, the exact temperature being determined by the grade of cream under treatment, finest generally to about 200 or 190 degrees and first grade to as high as 210 degrees. .Pasteurisation assists neutralisation of the cream and the heating releases gases much more quickly and allows a lot of the offflavours to be drawn off. HUGE HOLDING VATS.

From the second pasteuriser the cream runs over a water cooler, supplied from a well, to bring the temperature down to 70 or 74 degrees before passing to the expansion cooler, which is run from the freezer, to further lower the temperature to about 48 or 50 degrees. The cream is then pumped into the holding, vats and starter added to give it extra flavour. One vat has a capacity for 3000 gallons and the second one holds 2500 gallons. Both these vats have staybright steel linings. It is held in these vats overnight, the vats being insulated so as to control the temperature and have it at the desired point in readiness for churning. Holding the cream in the vats overnight allows it to solidify and consequently saves losses in buttermilk and gives a firmer body to the butter. The cream is pumped into the churns, one of which has a capacity for making one ton of butter and the other one and a half tons at a churning. The churns are set in action at high gear. A glass door in front enables the operator to keep an eye on the process and when the butter reaches the size of a small pea seed the churn is stopped and' the buttermilk drawn off. Chilled water is added to the churn, which is given a few rounds and the wash

water is drained off before the salt is added. For export butter a salt content of from 1.25 to 2 per cent is allowed. After the salt has been added three sets of. rollers in the churn are brought into operation, so that the butter is squeeed through the rollers and worked into a solid mass, water and salt being incorporated and evenly distributed in the butter in the process. Under Government regulations up to 16 per cent of water is allowed in the finished product. All butter is tested, of course, for its water content.

A.n up-to-date packer is used in the packing of butter in bulk, for export. This contrivance compresses the butter so tightly as to eliminate all holes or pockets, a vast improvement on the old process. The butter then moves along on rollers to the scales for weighing, paper is placed on it —aluminium foil with parchment between, so as to keep out light, which brings about deterioration by allowing it to oxidise—the product is then boxed and branded. Butter for the local market is packed in 11b pats. As a protection for the consumer all butter produced at the factory is dated. Standard boxes are used for the export trade and cardboard containers for the local market.