MOISTURE IN BUTTER.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 146, 21 June 1906, Page 2

MOISTURE IN BUTTER.

MR. KINSELLA'S VIEWS. (From Our Special He^crter.) PALMERSTON, 20th June. At to-day's sitting of the Dairy Conference the Dairy Commissioner (Mr. J. A. Kinsella) read it paper on "The Control of Moisture in Butter, and the Effect of the Water Contents on the Keeping Quality." The 'producers, he sAid, being the people whom this question will eventually affect moat, should consider -vHth the utmost care and judgment the wisdom or otherwise Of making any rash changes in our present 'system of manufactuie, with n, view to increasing the water contents of our butter. Particularly should that be so when it was known that the addition of more moisture than theytwcf.e at present, incolporaihg in the butter had only a slight, and, he thpught he was right in flaying, a^, temporary' increase in the profits to tho pvo<Juccr to recommend itself, ana that temporary increase in profit tit very serious risk of deterioration in the quality. The standard water content of butter Recommended in England, and which was likely to become law under tho Hew Buttcu Bill, was 16 pel- cent. As yet no standard had been fixed in this colony, but there wag a limit or minimum fixed for butterfat of 80 per cent., and tißill had been drafted just recently increasing the standard to 82 per cent. f Butter without silt or some other preservative would not maintain its flavour, nor keep for any great length of time, particularly when held at ordinary temperatures, but the keeping quality was largely dependent upon the amount of moisture ond the quality or purity of > the water incorporated in the butter. Butter which contained a large water content, nnd which was stored, for nny lengthy period, was bound to deteriorate, particularly if the water incorporated was not pure. Under tho Dairy Industry Act, 1898, butler must, hot bb mado from other than whole milk or cream, and the regulations tfndor that Act tnado it compulsory for butter to be manufactured and ninde in duly registered aild approved premises. It, would ( then, appear that when a good honest butter 1 was made from whole milk or cream, in duly registered premises, in compliance with the law, and was sold and shipped to other parta of the colony where it was so heuted and manipulated that the water content was greatly increased by artificial means, for the purpose of financial gain on the part of the manipulator from a commercial standpoint only, such a practice could only be characterised as fraud.