BUTTERMAKING TESTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1939, Page 9

BUTTERMAKING TESTS

OVERCOMING CREAM TAINTS. Butter-making experiments conducted by the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute have shown that good-quality butter can be made from clover-tainted creams when it is impossible to avoid some degree of taint in farming practice. Grazing and cattle-feeding experiments have also proved that these taints can be reduced to a negligible matter by controlling the clover content of the pasture. Fundamental studies in butter-making show that starter organisms exert a prejudicial influence on the keeping quality of butter, and that their effect is not entirely dependent on the acidity of the butter as has been commonly believed in the past. Thus the use of starters in making butter that has to be kept for a long period is called in question. The keeping quality of butter is also affected by the temperature employed in pasteurising the cream from which it is made. Studies in moulds have stressed the necessity for adopting careful sanitary measures in the manufacture, packing, and storage of dairy products, and for avoiding contamination of materials used in the manufacture of the products.