Vol. LVI. No. 2477. 
NEW YORK, JULY 17, 1897. 
*1.00 PEll YEAR. 
SUGGESTIONS REGARDING CREAM RIPENING 
WHAT CAUSES “ OEF-FLAVOR” CREAM? 
The Alkaline Tablet Test. 
One of the principal difficulties which I encounter 
in attacking this subject, is the fact that I am not yet 
convinced that any of the patent preparations or pet 
temperatures which have been proposed up to the 
present time, will prove to be a panacea for all the 
poor flavors conveyed to the cream by polluted milk. 
If the cream ripener or buttermaker could always de¬ 
pend on the purity of the milk which he has to handle, 
he could follow a uniform course of cream ripening, 
and expect to obtain a uniform quality of butter with 
some degree of certainty ; but the experienced butter- 
maker knows that, during the 
year, he has many varieties and 
conditions of milk to contend 
with, and that nearly all of 
these varieties are transmitted 
to the cream, and finally to the 
butter. It is much easier to 
enumerate the difficulties and 
varieties of flavors met with in 
cream ripening than it is to 
write a prescription for each 
one of them, or to propose one 
method of treatment that will 
overcome them all. Defective 
butter from creameries may be 
due to some of the following 
common causes, and the expert 
cream ripener cannot always 
be expected successfully to re¬ 
move them all. 
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 cream¬ 
ery buttermaker has to struggle 
more or less with these evils, 
and his success in overcoming 
them depends more on the 
amount of well-cared-for milk 
which he receives than any 
magic way he may have of 
ripening the cream. Creamery 
patrons are generally well ac¬ 
quainted with their neighbors, 
and sometimes ask, “What is 
the use of cleanliness and care¬ 
ful attention to our milk when 
it is mixed at the creamery 
with that of our careless neigh¬ 
bor ? ” It does seem rather dis¬ 
couraging and sometimes use¬ 
less to the model dairyman, to 
send his pure milk in a well-scoured can to the cream¬ 
ery, and have it associate with the tainted milk de¬ 
livered at the same time by his neighbor in battered 
and rusty cans. 
It is rather unfortunate that these two varieties of 
milk bring the same price per 100 pounds, if they con¬ 
tain the same amount of butter fat. The Babcock 
test has accomplished wonders in honestly regulating 
the prices paid for milk of different 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 pre¬ 
viously stated, the salvation of creamery butter, if it 
be saved and receive the pries of extras, depends on 
the fact that most of the milk is received in a compar¬ 
atively clean condition. If such milk is not in the 
majority, about the only thing a buttermaker 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 ofteu cause both milk and cream 
to ripen faster and in a different way than when there 
is more uniformity in the weather. The influence of 
temperature on the rate of cream ripening is some¬ 
thing very generally understood by buttermakers. 
They know, at least, that heat accelerates and cold 
retards the ripening of cream, but sometimes forget it 
These two factors, the variation in the purity of 
the milk, and the lack of uniformity in the weather 
are, probably, the most common causes of the differ¬ 
ences in the flavor of butter produced at one cream¬ 
ery. The milk is received at about the same time 
every day, the cream remains in the cream vat nearly 
the same number of hours before it is churned, and 
the churning is done at a certain time every morning, 
so that uniformity in the amount of ripening which 
the cream receives has to take its chances, because 
it may ripen much faster one day than another, but 
it is left in the cream vat about the same number of 
hours every day, regardless of its ripeness. It is 
my opinion that an exact rule regarding the length 
of time that each lot of cream should be kept at a 
certain temperature cannot be safely followed with 
the expectation of obtaining the same degree of 
ripeness every time. Buttermakers ought to make 
careful observations during their daily work, and 
make a record of these observations. 
Buttermakers ' Record. 
Note the temperature of the thoroughly mixed 
sweet cream, and the number of hours which it is 
kept at certain temperatures, also the ripeness of the 
milk, thickness of the cream, and condition of the at¬ 
mosphere during the ripening, then regulate your 
practice by these records. A systematic demonstra¬ 
tion from accurate records is much more useful than 
mysterious tasting and smell¬ 
ing of the cream. 
There are three things that 
are especially desirable in but¬ 
termaking. delicate flavor, 
good grain or body, and an ex¬ 
haustive churning. It is im¬ 
possible for me to enumerate 
all the known causes and 
effects that may have been 
noticed by different persons in 
their practice to have had an 
influence on these desirable 
points in buttermaking, but a 
few general statements regard¬ 
ing them may be of some in¬ 
terest as suggestions for dis¬ 
cussion. Clean milk from 
healthy, fresh cows undoubt¬ 
edly gives the most delicate 
flavor to butter, and with such 
milk, there is no excuse for 
butter with an “off flavor”, 
unless it come from some rank 
fodder which the cows have 
eaten. The buttermaker ought 
to be able to make fancy but¬ 
ter from the milk of fresh cows 
if he is capable of making it at 
all. Since this is a generally 
acknowledged fact, that has 
been repeatedly noticed by 
many dairymen, it will be 
found to be a good practice to 
have the milk supply so ar¬ 
ranged that it shall contain 
milk from some fresh cows 
during the entire year. The 
more fresh cows the better for 
the flavor of the butter. 
On the other hand, cream is 
sometimes so polluted with a 
lot of filthy milk that it is im¬ 
possible to overcome the bad 
flavors by any system of cream 
ripening. Another way of 
spoiling the butter flavor is by 
letting the cream sour too long, or over ripening it. 
The amount of salt which butter contains, also, has 
an influence on its flavor. 
Salting Butter. 
A definite rule for salting butter “ one ounce to the 
pound ” does not tell the whole story in regard to the 
amount of salt that the finished product contains. 
The size of the butter granules to which the salt is 
added, the dryness of these granules or the length 
of time the butter is allowed to drain in the churn 
before it is salted, and the amount of working the 
butter receives after adding the salt, all have an in¬ 
fluence on the quantity of salt left in the butter. 
Butter in very fine granules requires more salt than 
coarse granules, because more of the salt is lost dur- 
