494 BUTTER DEFECTS 



tose to butter, when in normal acid condition, may have a 

 slight preservative effect, improving its keeping quality. 



5. Neutralization. The presence of an unnatural alkaline 

 condition of the butter, or of the cream from which the butter 

 is made, accelerates any oxidizing action by rendering the 

 compounds capable of oxidation, more susceptible to oxidation. 



Over-neutralization with any alkali very greatly intensifies 

 the oxidizing action of all the foregoing agents and hastens the 

 development of tallowiness. This can be permanently pre- 

 vented only by careful standardization of the entire operation of 

 neutralization, including the testing of cream for acid, the prep- 

 aration of the neutralizer and its addition to the cream. Guess 

 work in neutralization is one of the most potent causes of tal- 

 lowy butter. The butter should further be protected against 

 direct contact with alkalies, by the complete removal from 

 churns, cubes and diverse packing equipment, of all traces of 

 alkaline wash water, and by the use of parchment wrappers 

 that are free from alkali, such as ammonia, which is used to 

 neutralize the sulphuric acid employed in the parchmenting 

 process. 



Storage Flavor. Where butter is held for any considerable 

 length of time in storage, it gradually surrenders some of its 

 delicate flavor and aroma which is characteristic of good fresh 

 butter, and develops a peculiar flavor known to the butterman 

 as the storage flavor. In butter of good quality this change 

 takes place very slowly and is for a long time hardly perceptible. 

 Rogers 1 reports that, in examining some millions of pounds of 

 butter made and stored for the U. S. Navy Dept., sweet cream 

 butter, almost without exception, kept through several months' 

 cold storage with only slight changes in flavor. In butter of in- 

 ferior quality the storage flavor generally develops rapidly. 



Other conditions being the same, the rapidity with which the 

 storage flavor develops depends largely on the temperature of 

 storage and on the time and temperature at which the butter 

 is held before it enters cold storage. The lower the tempera- 



1 Rogers, Factors Influencing Changes In Storage Butter. Address at the 

 Third International Congress of Refrigeration, Washington-Chicago, 1913. 



