CHAPTER XXIV. 
DETECTION OF TAINTED MILK AND CREAM. 
In well regulated dairies the head operator will usually 
be found at the intake every morning carefully examin- 
‘ing the milk as it arrives at the factory. It requires skill 
and training to detect and properly locate the numerous 
taints to which milk is heir. It also requires considerable 
tact to reform patrons who have been careless in the 
handling of their milk. The best skill available in the 
dairy should therefore be placed in the intake. 
In the daily examination of milk, defects can usually be 
detected by smelling of it as soon as the cover is re- 
moved from the cans. When, however, milk arrives at 
the creamery at a temperature of 50° F. or below, it 
becomes more difficult to detect taints; indeed during the 
winter when milk is often received in a partly frozen 
condition, experts may be unable to detect faults which 
become quite prominent when the milk is heated to a 
temperature of 100° F. or above. 
Frequently milk is seeded with undesirable kinds of 
bacteria which have not had time to develop sufficiently 
to manifest themselves at the time the milk is delivered 
to the creamery, but which later in the course of cream 
ripening produce undesirable flavors. It is necessary, 
therefore, in making a thorough examination of milk to 
heat it to a temperature of from 95° to 100° F. and to 
keep it there for some time to permit a vigorous bacterial 
development. Such bacterial development can be carried 
on in what is known as the Wisconsin Curd Test and the 
Gerber fermentation test. 
190 
