ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 217 



THE RIPENING ©F eREHM 



PROF. H. W. CONN, STORR'S EXPERIMENTAL STATION. 



During the last ten xears a Vf;ry great change has taken place in the 

 attitude of the buttermaker toward the process of cream ripening. In 

 earlier years only the exceptionally expert buttermaker gave the matter 

 much attention; today it is everywhere recognized as one of the most 

 Important factors in the process of obtaining good butter. This change 

 lias been brought about largely as the result of bacteriological investiga- 

 tions by experiment stations in thir> country and in Europe. The final 

 word upon the matter of cream ripening has not yet been said, but so 

 much information has been collected as to warrant now a general re- 

 view of the present attitude of scientists as well as practical butter- 

 makers toward the problem of cream ripening. The present bulletin is 

 not intended as a report of the results of new experiments, but simply as 

 a summary of our present knowledge of the nature of cream, ripening 

 and the relation to the process of the use of "starters," both natural and 

 artificial. 



PURPOSE OF CREAM RIPENING. 



The three purposes of cream ripening are as follows: 

 First: Ripening is believed to increase the yield of butter, for it has 

 been found by numerous experiments that the return in the form of but- 

 ter is larger from cream properly ripened than from unripened or im- 

 properly ripened cream. This is at all events true for gravity cream. 



