FLAVORS OF BUTTER 173 



comments on this matter as follows : " The high salting 

 did not impart a fishy flavor to the butter made from 

 cream received sweet, so it would seem to the writer that 

 the odors are in the butter, and the salt simply makes them 

 more pronounced." 



The author has had opportunity to observe the effect 

 of the quantity of salt on the keeping properties, and he 

 thinks that within reasonable limits, such as 2 to 4 per 

 cent, it has very little to do with the keeping properties. 

 These observations are based on the examination of vari- 

 ous lots of butter at different times. Some was made in 

 the creamery laboratory at Cornell University and stored 

 for outside parties, and some was experimental butter, 

 the results of which have been reported.^ The Navy De- 

 partment has stored about seven or eight hundred thousand 

 pounds of butter annually for the past seven or eight 

 years and the salt requirement has been 2.5 to 3.25 per 

 cent. A saturated brine solution of ordinary temperatures 

 contains about 26.5 per cent salt. When the butter tests 

 13.0 per cent water and 2.5 to 3.25 per cent salt, the salt- 

 content of the water in the butter is 17 to 25 per cent. 



At the present time there are ice cream factories and 

 certain butter concerns that store large quantities of un- 

 salted butter with good results. Even though butter 

 may be safely stored when it contains no salt, it is for- 

 tunate for the industry that the call of the trade is largely 

 for the salted product, for under the average storage condi- 

 tions there is no doubt that salt acts as a preservative. 



The amount of washing that butter receives and the 

 quality of the wash water is important. From the physi- 

 cal standpoint, butter must be washed because the brine 



1 Guthrie, E. S., Some Butter Studies, Butter, Cheese, and Egg 

 Jour., Vol. 7, No. 21, p. 18, 1916. 



