4Y6 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



making uniform butter, that has gained preference in the English and 

 other foreign marliets, is largely, if not entirely, due to the use of start- 

 ers in its manufacture. 



In ripening, cream, care must be taken to reach the right degree of 

 acidity. This can be detei'mined with Mann's acid test or with the Far- 

 rington alkaline tablets. If the ripening is carried on too far the bac- 

 teria are apt to attack the albumen or the fat of the cream, forming a 

 new product which will give butter a disagreeable flavor. The over- 

 ripening of cream affects to a large extent the keeping quality of butter. 

 An experiment will probably best illustrate this point. Samples of but- 

 ter were analyzed. In the first sample the butter churned from overripe 

 cream contained I.IG per cent, casein, while in the second sample butter 

 churned from mildly ripened cream contained only 0.8 per cent. As the 

 keeping quality of butter is decreased when its proportion of casein is 

 increased, it will readily be seen that under equal conditions the over- 

 ripe sample would become "off-flavored" more rapidly than the other. 



To produce a uniform flavor in butter, the degree of acidity must be 

 considered in relation to the thickness of the cream. In the making of a 

 high-flavored butter, the cream must be thin rather than thick, in order 

 to furnish more milk serum for the development of more acid. Thick 

 cream should not be ripened to so high a degree of acidity as thin cream, 

 for the reason that the flavor of the butter is endangered on account of 

 the lack of food supply for germ growth for the production of more acid. 

 The following standard we have adopted: For cream containing 20 per 

 cent, of butter-fat, ripening should proceed until about 0.6 per cent of acid 

 develops, as determined by means of Farrington's tablets; and for every 

 10 per cent, increase of fat in cream there should be a decrease of one- 

 tenth of 1 per cent, of acid, as the proper stage for checking the fermen- 

 tation. 



In the ripening of cream we prefer to separate cream very rich, about 

 30 to 35 pel" cent, and thin, down to 25 per cent., with a clean-flavored 

 starter. Theoretically we assume that the more of the tainted skim milk 

 we can get out of the cream and replace it with a starter, the better re- 

 sults we will have. This plan bears out well in practice. 



A certain temperature for ripening cream seems to have little effect 

 on the flavor, provided the cream is ripened above 60 degrees and below 

 90 degrees F. The ripening is, however, much hastened by high temper- 

 ature. A satisfactory temperature is from G5 degrees to 70 .degrees for 

 summer, and from 70 degrees to SO degrees for winter. The cream should 

 be stirred occasionally during the ripening process. This is essential for 

 .'several reasons. It aerates the cream, insures evenness in ripening, pre- 

 vents the surface from drying— Avhich is one of the causes of mottled 

 butter — and furnishes free oxygen to aerobic germs, which seem to play 

 a part In the ripening process. 



