252 



STARTERS 



done with the help of a pure culture starter, or the flavor may 

 be added to the cream by adding a considerable amount of prop- 

 erly ripened lactic acid starter to the cream, shortly before 

 churning and without further ripening of the cream, or the 

 flavor may be added by pouring over and working into the but- 

 ter a considerable amount of lactic acid starter in the churn. 



Kinds of Starters. The starters in use in butter making 

 may be conveniently classified into two groups, namely: 



Natural starter 



Spontaneously soured whole milk 

 Spontaneously soured skim milk 

 Sour cream from previous churning 

 Sour buttermilk from previous churning 

 Sour whey 



Commercial or 

 artificial starter 



Whole milk 

 Skim milk 

 Condensed skim milk 



redituted 

 Skim milk powder 



redissolved 



Soured by use of 

 commercial culture 

 of lactic acid bac- 

 teria 



Natural Starters. Under favorable conditions, starters be- 

 longing to this group may be used to good advantage, but as 

 a whole they cannot be consistently recommended, as their source 

 usually is uncertain and their purity questionable. They cannot 

 be depended on for uniformly satisfactory results. This is espe- 

 cially true of sour cream, buttermilk and sour whey. If the 

 cream of the previous churning was at all contaminated with 

 undesirable micro-organisms, the use of such cream or of the 

 buttermilk thereof, might easily become the very cause of the 

 propagation of harmful germ life and the development of flavors 

 injurious to the quality and market value of butter, and this 

 defect would be propagated from one churning to another. 



In a similar manner the 'use of spontaneously soured whole 

 milk or skim milk might also prove detrimental, rather than 

 beneficial, in most cases where the source of the raw material 

 is unknown. 



Commercial or Artificial Starters. Commercial starters are 

 those, in the preparation of which a commercial, so-called pure 



