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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Importance of Ripeness in Cream

Importance of Ripeness in Cream.

In my remarks upon this branch of the subject of dairying cannot refrain from adding the results which have been obtained Dr. Babcock at the Wisconsin Station. He has shown by a number of valuable tests, which were made to determine the relative value of sweet cream and of sour cream for butter-making, that whereas only 13.48lb. of butter were obtained from 100lb. of sweet cream, 17.11lb. were obtained from 1001b. sour cream. The average time occupied in churning the sweet cream was thirty-two minutes that of churning the sour cream was twenty-nine minutes. According to analyses which were subsequently made, 11.69 per cent. of butter-fat was obtained from the sweet cream, and 11.49 per cent from a mixture of sweet and sour cream. The sweet cream contained a trifle less water and solid matter other than butter than the sour cream contained. It is also shown that an average of 79.79 per cent, of fat was recovered from the sweet cream, while 91.64 per cent, was obtained from the sour cream. These details very conclusively show how great is the loss which occurs when sweet cream page 11 is used for butter-making, and, further, that there is no diminution of the loss when sour cream is added to it. Experience has shown those who have much to do with practical dairying that every lot of cream should be ripened before churning. Ripened cream contains lactic acid, and if, as is believed, the lactic acid is the valuable assistant which enables the dairyman to obtain a larger yield of butter, it is evident that the cream must remain a certain time to enable that acid to develop. In an experiment made to test whether the addition of the lactic acid of commerce to cream would have any effect, Dr. Babcock found in three experiments, in which fresh cream, fresh cream with lactic acid added, and ripened cream were respectively churned, that the percentage of butter obtained was 14.85, 17-18, and 18.94 respectively. A gain was therefore effected by using the acid, but not so great as that obtained by the ripening of the cream, which in this instance was, it appears, sourer than that to which the acid had been added. In another series of experiments it was found that there was a gain of 1.95 per cent, of butter by the use of acetic acid, and a gain of 2.34 per cent, by the use of ripened cream, whereas there was a loss of 0.59 per cent, by allowing fresh cream to stand without souring. In other experiments which were made at the Wisconsin Station in 1885 it was shown, with regard to the distribution of fat in milk used in butter-making, that for each 100lb. of fat contained in the milk there were found—
In the skim-milk 12.48
In the buttermilk 13.43
In the butter 74.09
100.00

I have frequently urged this point in different parts of England, and have shown that in some cases, by carelessness or want of knowledge in cream-raising or cream-extraction, a third of the butter has been lost, so that by bad ripening of the cream in addition Early one-half the butter-fat which the milk originally contained had passed away in the skim-milk and the buttermilk.