BUTTER DEFECTS 501 



Butter packages, such as tubs, cubes and cartons made of wood 

 which naturally harbors an intensive woody odor, always lend 

 butter a woody flavor. Hence, pine tubs, boxes and cartons are 

 entirely unsuited for packing butter, while spruce, white ash, 

 hemlock, etc., well cured and dried and when properly soaked 

 before use, are generally free from this objection. 



However, even spruce and white ash tubs may give butter in 

 storage a pronounced woody flavor. In such cases the woodi- 

 ness is usually confined to the surface of the butter at the bot- 

 tom and side, the interior remaining free from it. The flavor 

 at or near the outside, however, is frequently intensely woody 

 and pound prints cut from the outer portions of such butter may 

 be practically ruined from the standpoint of the market. 



When butter is stored in tubs made from well seasoned, 

 sound lumber of white ash or spruce, and when they are prop- 

 erly treated before packing, the danger from woodiness is very 

 remote. But when the tubs are made up of a poor grade of 

 lumber, and especially of pithy stayes, or lumber that is green 

 and has not been well seasoned and dried, or lumber felled while 

 still in sap, the woody odor is very intense and there is great 

 danger of woody flavor in butter. 



This danger can be minimized, if not entirely overcome, by 

 soaking the tubs over night in brine, preferably hot brine, and 

 by drying and heating them thoroughly over a steam jet before 

 paraffining, so that the paraffine will soak well into the wood, 

 forming a uniform and complete coating that will permanently 

 stick and not peel off. For further directions see "Preparation 

 of Butter Tubs," Chapter XII. 



Cooked or Scorched Flavor. As the name implies, this 

 flavor is the result of exposure of the product to heat. It does 

 not often appear in raw cream butter, but is a frequent defect of 

 butter made from pasteurized cream. It is generally due to 

 heating to excessively high temperature or to prolonged exposure 

 to the heat, or improper application of the process of pasteur- 

 ization. It is probably the direct cause of the action of heat on 

 the caseous matter of the cream. 



Most of the butter made from pasteurized cream has a slight 

 pasteurized, or cooked flavor when fresh. This slight cooked 



