492 Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. [July 2, 1920. 



" Fishy." 

 The term " fishy " means that the butter has a disagreeable flavour Hke fish 

 oil. True fishiness is rarely found in comparatively fresh butter, but a 

 peculiar "oily" flavour, which has been proved to be the first indication of 

 fishiness, is more often noted, though not nearly as frequently as was the case 

 some few years back. 



Fishiness is said to be associated with butter made from i>l(l acid cream, 

 and this statement has been borne out by the result of investigations carried 

 on by the New South Wales and New Zealand Departments of Agriculture. 



The mould Oidium lactis is also said to play an important part in the 

 production of this flavour in Australian butter, but what particular germ or 

 combination of germs is actually the cause of the trouble is, I am afraid, a 

 conjecture, for some diff'erences of opinion appear to exist amongst experts in 

 this connection. 



However, whatever may be the direct cause of fishiness, there seems to be 

 little doubt that in the process of neutralisation and pasteurisation of cream 

 properly carried out a means has been discovered whereby this trouble can 

 be eradicated. The Department's experience of the 1916 winter storage 

 bxitter helps to prove this, for at that time two consignments of butter 

 were sent to Sydney by a large factory to be stored for winter use, one lot 

 being pasteurised and the other not. These consignments were put into 

 cold store in March and examined between four and five months afterwards. 

 It was then found that the un pasteurised butter had become " fishy " and the 

 pivsteurisecl consignment showed no sign of this flavour. In this connection, 

 it is also a significant fact that, out of the winter pool butter of 19 IS 

 examined by me on its release from cold store, only a comparatively few 

 lots came out " fishy," and these latter consisted almost entirely of butter 

 from factories which did not carry on the process of neutralisation and 

 pasteurisation. 



Pasteurised butter with indications of fishiness. — Thei'e were also certain 

 lots of the butter in the 1918 pool which came from factories where 

 pasteurisation was carried on, but which on exauiination showed signs of 

 fishy development ; but this fact, to my mind, in no way prejudices the claim 

 that pasteurisation is an eflficient preventive for fishiness in butter, for I 

 contend that this state of things may have been brought about by the adop- 

 tion of incorrect methods in pasteurisation — such as, in the case of the flash 

 system, not heating as nearly as possible the whole bulk of the cream to a 

 sufficiently high temperature, and, in the batch system, not holding the cieam 

 long enough at the temperature to which it had been heated to destroy the 

 particular organisms which cause this flavour. 



In the case of the latter system an exam[)le may be quoted of how a little 

 oversight may also cause contamination, and possibly result in the production 

 of this flavour. It had been noticed that the qualitj' of the butter made from 

 the first churn out of a particular lot of cream which had been pasteurised by 

 the holding system was inferior to that made from the remaining cream in the 



