188 NEUTRALIZATION 



been " neutralized " by milk of lime and pasteurized, it can be 

 made into a very fine quality of butter. The president of a large 

 creamery company, possibly the second largest manufacturer 

 of creamery butter in this country, made a sworn statement that 

 during the year 1920 they manufactured 27 million pounds of 

 butter from cream that had been separated on the farms in 

 various states and that 25 million pounds out of the 27 million 

 pounds sold for extras or specials, some of it selling at a premium 

 even above specials. All this butter was made from cream of 

 which the acidity had been reduced by milk of lime. The fact 

 that cream can be shipped a long distance has been the means of 

 developing and stimulating dairying in sections of the country 

 where there was not enough cream available to supply a local 

 creamery. Where there is a sufficient volume of business to 

 sustain a local creamery, and the same is rightly managed, no 

 system will give greater returns to the producer. Whether a 

 creamery is local or centralized, the same condition prevails. 



To make butter of the best keeping quality it is necessary 

 that the cream be pasteurized. Local creameries, as well as the 

 large creameries, receive some very sour cream, but not usually 

 in as great proportion. If such cream is to be pasteurized, it is 

 essential that the acidity be reduced. Investigations conducted 

 by the Dairy Division of the Federal Government and others 

 have demonstrated that butter made from cream with a low 

 acidity possesses better keeping qualities when placed in storage 

 than butter made from cream having a high degree of acidity. 

 Reducing the acidity of cream to the right point is a problem 

 that necessitates intelligent care and an understanding of the 

 effects of the use of an alkali. Cream that has been exceedingly 

 high in acid, which has been reduced by lime water or some other 

 harmless alkali substance, cannot be re-ripened with safety to 

 the same degree of acidity as sweet cream that has never had its 

 acidity reduced. Investigation has not revealed any satisfactory 

 explanation of this fact. It would seem that the alkali used for 

 reducing the acidity does not penetrate all the particles of cream, 

 or, in other words, that the cream is not in a perfectly liquid 

 condition. Some cream received at the factories is very sour 



