THE QUALITY OF MILK.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 309, 5 November 1910, Page 6

THE QUALITY OF MILK.

The following process for the detection of added water or of skimmed milk in ordinary milk is more accurate than the simple use of a laetodensimeter without the creamometer check. The whole test can be made in five minutes. The result does not show whether the adulteration consisted in the addition of water or in the subtraction of cream, but as a rule this matters little to the consumer. What he wants to know is whether or not he got what he paid for. The suspected milk is stirred with a spoon in order to disseminate into the whole liquid the cream which may have come to the surface. Then one volume oC milk is poured into fifty volumes of water —one fluid ounce to two and a half pints. A candle is lighted in a dark room. The experimenter takes an ordinary drinking glass with a flat and even bottom, and holds it immediately above the candle at a distance o? about one foot from it, so as to be able to see the flame of the candle through the bottom of the glass. He then slowly pours the diluted milk into the glass. The flame becomes less and less bright as the level of the liquid rises into the glass. Soon the flame is reduced to a dull white spot. A little more liquid slowly added so as to avoid pouring an exces3, and the flame becomea absolutely invisible. All that remains to be done is to measure the height of the liquid in the glass, this being most conveniently ascertained by dipping into it a strip of pasteboard and then msasuring the wet part. It .should measure not over an inch if the millc is pure. With good quality milk diluted and tested as stated, the depth will be about seven-eighths of an inch before the flame is lost to view. A mixture of one volume of milk and half a volume of water should show a depth of one and one-half inches. A depth of two inches indicates partially skimmed milk or a mixture of one volume of good milk with one of water.