CREAM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1625, 5 March 1884, Page 3

CREAM.

A writer on dairy matters in one of our Eastern exchanges says:—The behaviour of cream by the addition of water is a subject that should bo well understood by the owners of creameries It is known that the addition of cold cater to the milk causes the cream to riso with greater rapidity than it otherwise would do. But the effect of so adding wator to the cream itself is not so well understood, Cream is lighter than milk, and water .is also lighter than milk, Thero is very littlo difference between the specific gravities of cream and water. Indeed very poor creams may bo of precisely the same specific gravity as water, whilo very rick cr<"atn will be lighter. Cream varies very much in its characterr. Of six samples the proportion of water contained have been found to vary from .50 to 72,25 per, cent,, while the proportions of actual fat have varied from 19 to 43.9 per cent, It is a fact that cream is only exceedingly rich milk, and the milk of. the cream has precisely the specific gravity of skimmed milk that is free from fat, which is 1.035. Tlio fat of milk has a speciflc gravity of '9, so that it is quite easy to calculate how much fat thero is required to make cream weigh precisely the same as water, Then water and

.. cream thoroughly mixed would not separate, and a certain proportion of water may be mixed with cream, and if the water is properly thickened and colored, as it is sometimes, with starch and yellow matter, nothing 1 but a chemical analysis would detect the the adulteration, Aa a practical illustration of the possibility of dishonest treatine, t of cream we might refer to an experiment made by Professor Muncy at the lowa College, in which eight parts of water were added to two parts of cream, and two and a quarter hours after, the cream which separated was doubled in quantity; while in 12 hours the cream still showed an increased bulk of one part in twenty, or five per cent, These show that the cream guage and the milk can are neither to be relied upon as a test of cream, while the natural variation in quality, which is so largo, must of necessity operate to the disadvantage of those whose cream is richest in fat, and in favor of those whoso ere am is fcpoor. .