36 DAIRYING 



595. Butter which is worked but little at a time and allowed 

 to stand between workings is much less likely to be mottled that* 

 that which may be given the same amount of working at one 

 time without stopping. Dry, hard butter to which dry salt is 

 added is more often mottled than that which is soft and some- 

 what moist, or has been salted with damp salt. Any condition 

 of the butter that will aid or retard the solution or distribution 

 of the salt, such as its water content, its hardness and the size 

 of its granules, will have an influence on the mottled appear- 

 ance of the butter, and an uneven distribution of water in the 

 granular butter may be the cause of mottles by dissolving dif- 

 ferent amounts of salt in various parts of the same churning. 



596. Hard and soft granules, as well as small and large 

 ones, will hold different amounts of water, which in some parts 

 of the churning may be so plentiful as to dissolve the salt read- 

 ily, while in other parts there is less water and the solvent ac- 

 tion on the salt is slower. The presence or absence of mottles 

 is therefore entirely within the control of the butter maker and 

 he should not be satisfied until he is capable of making perfectly 

 even colored butter in which there is no suggestion of mottles. 



When butter is freshly made the salt may not have had 

 sufficient time to show the effect which it will have later on the 

 color of the butter. This makes it difficult to determine whether 

 or not the butter will be mottled after it has stood long enough 

 to harden, and a positive statement in regard to the future ap- 

 pearance of mottles in the butter cannot be safely made without 

 a knowledge of the details of both the salting and the working of 

 the butter. 



597. It has been claimed that too cold wash water will 

 cause mottled butter, and this is undoubtedly sometimes the 

 case, but the effect it will have depends on the extent to which 

 the butter is cooled, to the temperature of the water. If only the 

 surface of the granules are cooled by the water standing on 

 them a short time the salt will not be uniformly 'dissolved by 

 the butter and this may cause mottles, but if the granular butter 

 is thoroughly and uniformly hardened by the cold water there 



