FROM CHURN TO PACKAGE 143 



par. 181). It is right that there should be a legal limit 

 on this component of butter, for unscrupulous manu- 

 facturers, by careful control of the working process, could 

 incorporate 20 per cent water without suspicion from the 

 average consumer. Another reason for placing a legal 

 limit on moisture in butter, which is the main one, is 

 that the food value of the product is less when the moisture- 

 content is high. 



105. Variation of moisture. — The moisture of a cer- 

 tain churning is not constant throughout the mass. The 

 average butter varies. According to Guthrie and Ross,^ 

 of fifty-onci packages of butter, nine, or 17.6 per cent, 

 showed a difference of 1 per cent or more of moisture 

 in adjacent samples, and in eleven packages, or 21.6 per 

 cent, there was a difference of 1 per cent or more between 

 the lowest and the highest moisture tests. This butter 

 was received from different creameries in New York. Lee, 

 Hepburn and Barnhart ^ found that the variation of 

 moisture in butter ranges from .1 to 1.0 per cent between 

 different samples representing the same butter. 



The moisture-content of butter in the churn is usually 

 a little greater than after it has been tubbed or printed. 

 Raitt * says that the water in butter after being packed 

 was about .4 per cent less than 'when it was in the churn. 

 Most of the butter was normally worked, and it was 

 finished in a Lusted printer. Even distribution of mois- 



1 Guthrie, E. S., and Ross, H. E., Distribution of Moisture 

 and Salt in Butter, Cornell Univ. Agri. Exp. Sta., Bui. 336, p. 21, 

 1913. 



2 Lee, Carl E., Hepburn, N. W., and Barnhart, Jesse M., 

 A Study of Factors Influencing the Composition of Butter, 

 Univ. 111. Agri. Exp. Sta., Bui. 137, p. 314, 1909. 



3 Raitt, J. A., Moisture Control in Butter, Thesis Cornell 

 Univ. Library, p. 31, 1915. 



