FROM CHURN TO PACKAGE 153 



PACKING BUTTER 



Butter should be put in suitable packages properly 

 prepared. It should be carefully packed and not simply 

 thrown into the containers. 



117. Wholesale packages. The butter should be 

 packed in a compact mass. In case of the cubes, care 

 should be observed in filling the corners. Much of the 

 butter that is put in tubs is so poorly tamped that great 

 holes are seen when the tub is lifted off, and the liner is 

 stripped from the butter. Such a product does not have 

 a pleasing appearance on the sales counter. The finish 

 of the package is also important, as seen in Fig. 55. 



Shrinkage. Careful preparation of the packages by 

 soaking, steaming, and paraffining not only makes them 

 more sanitary but less likely to lose moisture in shipping. 

 Rogers 1 found that the shrinkage of butter in unparaffined 

 tubs was about six times greater than in the paraffined 

 packages. His figures show a loss in weight of .946 per 

 cent in the unparaffined tubs and a shrinkage of .165 per 

 cent in the paraffined tubs. Guthrie 2 reports a loss of 

 .29 per cent on 100 tubs of butter that was held 134 days 

 in paraffined tubs at F. to - 10 F. 



Different states have laws controlling the weight of 

 butter. New York state, for example, has the following 

 regulation: 3 "Butter in crocks or tubs. The maximum 

 variation allowed will be one per cent (1 %), but the 

 variation of twelve, taken at random, must not run uni- 

 formly below." 



1 Rogers, L. A., Paraffining Butter Tubs, U. S. Dept. Agri., 

 B. A. L, Cir. 130, 1908. 



2 Guthrie, E. S., Butter Shrinkage, Jour. Dairy Sci., Vol. 1, 

 No. 2, p. 136, 1917. 



3 Supt. of Weights and Measures New York State. Weights 

 and Measures, Bui. No. 3, 1914. 



