THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 559 



the late Prof. Siegleke why the Danes incorporate so much water in their 

 butter and he answered that butter was supposed to be plastic. It was 

 intended to spread on bread and this could not be done if the butter con- 

 tained all fat. While I do not like to see slushy butter I think that from 

 fourteen to fifteen per cent of water can be incorporated with good results. 

 It is almost impossible to form any conclusion of the amount of water 

 butter contains by looking at it. Frequently butter that seems slushy 

 will contain very little water under chemical analysis. Professor Storch 

 has been working on this subject for a number of years and he has been 

 unable to fully explain why some samples of butter have a very dry ap- 

 pearance and at the same time contain a very high per cent of water, some 

 samples testing as high as eighteen or nineteen per cent. We do know 

 that when a lot of cream is churned at a time that the overrun will be much 

 greater than when, a small quantity is churned. This is possibly due to the 

 fact that when a small quantity of cream is used the fat globules are 

 thrown together more compactly and do not hold the same amount of water 

 as when a large quantity is churned. There are several other conditions 

 that influence the yield which the skilled maker understands and some 

 conditions which I would not care to explain here. 



The washing of butter is a far more important factor in butter mak- 

 ing than is generally supposed. The keeping qualities as well as the flavor 

 can be seriously affected by undesirable bacteria being transmitted 

 through the wash water. C. Larson, one of my assistants, has been carry- 

 ing on experiments during the past year along this line, and he has had 

 some startling results from butter washed with seemingly pure water as 

 compared with butter washed with water that had been pasteurized and 

 cooled. I believe the time is not far distant when all wash water will be 

 pasteurized or sterilized. Take the question of color or mottles, thousands 

 of dollars are lost annually by butter being mottled. This defect is caused 

 by an uneven distribution of salt as many of you know. Take three lots 

 of butter from the same churning even where no artificial coloring has 

 been added, salt one lot at the rate of a half ounce per pound, the second 

 lot at an ounce and the third lot at one and one-half ounces, and the color 

 will be so strikingly high in the last lot that it could not be mixed with the 

 other lots without showing streaks. This is no doubt due to the fact that 

 salt has an affinity for water. The tendency is for them to run together 

 and form a solution. When salt is used, the water collects in large beads 

 thus giving the butter a darker shade of color. Whenever you find light 

 streaks in butter you will invariably find no salt, therefore the first con- 

 sideration in salting butter is to get good salt that will dissolve readily. 

 The butter should not be drained very dry. It is better to use a little more 

 salt if it is inclined to wash off some. Salt should always be put on the 

 butter In the churn and churn revolved a few times to thoroughly incor- 

 porate salt and butter before putting rollers in gear, thus retaining as 

 much moisture in the butter as possible. Allow butter to stand from fifteen 

 to twenty minutes before working in this condition and then work until 

 butter has become waxy in appearance and salt ceases to be gritty. If 

 these precautions are observed, there will be no danger of mottles. In 



