ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 169 



COMMON CAUSES OF BAD FLAVOR IN BUTTER. 



First. Unclean tinware, sour strainer cloths dirty 

 milkers, poorly ventilated stables and milk houses, comprise 

 one group of causes for bad flavors in butter. 



Nearly every creamery butter-maker has to struggle more 

 or less with these evils, and his success in overcoming them 

 depends more on the amount of well-cared milk which he 

 receives than any magic w^ay he may have for ripening the 

 cream. Creamery patrons are generally well acquainted 

 with their neighbors and sometimes ask, ^'What is the use 

 of cleanliness and careful attention to our milk when it is 

 mixed at the creamery with that of our careless neighbor?" 

 It does seem rather discouraging and sometimes useless to 

 the model dairyman, to send his pure milk in a well scoured 

 can to the creamery and have it associate with the tainted 

 milk delivered at the same time by his neighbor in battered 

 and rusty cans. It is rather unfortunate that these two varie- 

 ties of milk receive the same price per hundred pounds, if 

 they contain the same amount of butter fat. The Babcock 

 test has accomplished wonders in honestly regulating the 

 prices paid for milk of dilferent fat qualities, but the next 

 advance step should be made in the direction of paying for 

 the purity of milk, according to its grade, above or below a 

 certain standard. As i)reviously stated, the salvation of 

 creamery butter, if it is saved and receives the price of extras, 

 depends on the fact that most of the milk is received in a 

 comparatively clean condition. If such milk is not in the 

 majority about the only thing a butter-maker can hope to do 

 to help save the quality of the butter is to ripen the cream 

 quickly with the use of a clean skim milk starter, or one 

 made from selected whole milk. 



Second. The weather is something that the cream 

 ripener must take into consideration. A sudden change 

 from a clear, bright atmosphere to warm and sultry days and 

 nights will often cause both milk and cream to ripen faster 

 and in a different way than where there is more uniformity 

 in the weather. The influence of temperature on the rate of 

 cream ripening is something very generally understood by 



