338 



BUTTEE MARGARINE 



ahce, the amount of water is said by Kichmond to be less, on the 

 average, than in unsalted butter. 



"Pickled " butter, however, made by warming butter and kneading 

 it with brine, may contain a very high percentage of water. Sixteen 

 per cent of water is usually taken as the upper limit in good butter, 

 though this may be exceeded by Irish "pickled " butter. 



The following table gives the average results of the analyses of 

 various kinds of butter by Vieth : 



Butter is sometimes e.g., in certain districts in Ireland and Scot- 

 land made by churning whole milk. In all cases the milk is allowed 

 to go sour first, and the character of the butter produced is very vari- 

 able. The yield of butter is said, on the average, to be higher than 

 that from sour cream by the old setting method, but less than that 

 from sour separated cream. 



" Milk blended butter " is the name given to a product obtained by 

 kneading butter in milk and usually contains an excessive quantity of 

 water and too much casein to keep well. It is illegal to sell butter 

 containing more than 16 per cent of water. 



In America, rancid butter is sometimes converted into a product 

 known as "renovated," "process," "boiled," "aerated," or "steril- 

 ised " butter, by melting it and separating the fat from the water, salt 

 and casein. The clean fat is next heated and air is blown through it 

 in order to remove the unpleasant smell ; the fluid fat is then churned 

 into an emulsion with fresh milk, quickly cooled by ice and the gran- 

 ular mass worked, salted and made up as butter. 



Oleo-margarine, margarine, or butterine, a butter substitute, is made 

 by churning "oleo oil" with lard (sometimes a little butter and oc- 

 casionally cotton-seed oil or arachis oil) and milk in a warm condition, 

 until the whole is emulsified. The mass is then quickly cooled, salted, 

 coloured with annatto and made up like butter. The oleo oil is pre- 

 pared from clarified, beef fat, by melting it and slowly cooling it to 

 about 30, when it separates into solid stearin and liquid olein and 

 palmitin. The stearin is then removed by a press and the mixture of 

 olein and palmitin thus obtained. 



Margarine, like " renovated" butter, when heated in a test tube or 

 dish over a flame, bumps and splutters violently, while pure butter 

 evolves its water as steam or " boils" quietly but with much frothing 

 or foaming. The most reliable test, however, by which to distinguish 

 genuine butter from its substitutes, is a determination of the volatile 

 fatty acids present. 



