“IMP IN BOTTLE”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 168, 17 June 1936, Page 6

“IMP IN BOTTLE”

FLAVOURING ELEMENT. ISOLATION BY SCIENTISTS. Potent to an amazing degree, and yet defying discovery, are most of the influences which contribute towards the constitution of flavour in butter. Flavour is so subtle that nearly always does it circumvent laboratory methods for its evaluation. Elusive as the atom, and capricious, it refuses to be coquetted by scientists and, despite their relentless pursuit, has challenged the full light of investigation. Flavour is really moody, has no form, and changes its manner of expression at will. Nothing can bo more vacillating, more aggravating, more indefinite. and more nearly the essence of inexactitude. Quite revelatory is the wide sphere of its influence and anomalies, hut research workers are right on its track. They have succeeded by tlie processes of chemical elimination in isolating and bottling what is really nothing more than a mysterious smell, which they call diacetyl, and this is one of the components of flavour. They have a real “imp in the bottle” and have found that it has magic powers in tickling discerning palates. Price for dairy produce is mainly determined on flavour and body in butter where it is the usual wellmanufactured article typical of_ the produce offering on the United Kingdom markets, though marketing conditions, such as shortage or oversupply, are also controlling factors. The Danish product receives a, higher price than that from New Zealand, mainly because of its extra flavour. If New Zealand could export highly flavoured butter which would keep—it already has good body—it might l>e possible to infiltrate this with the trade handling the highly flavoured article, and command a premium in so doing. The Danish product is made by churning cream ripened to liigb acidity, which gives a highly flavoured butter. Unfortunately, the. degree of its acidity limits very seriously its keeping qualities, and, as a rule, Danish butter is sold within fourteen days, at most, of its manufacture. Scientific workers all over the world have devoted years of investigation to flavour in butter. Flavour is probably due to a variety of substances, one of which is diacetyl. This agent is so powerful that a fraction of a part per million, added to mild flavoured butter, will impart an aroma which approaches that of butter made from ripened cream. Diacetyl, curiously enough, is not an acidic substance, but is a by-pro-duct of the acidity developed by the “starter” added to the cream. The fact that an important constituent of the aroma of high acid butter is not itself an acidic substance opens up an interesting field of investigation, and a considerable amount of work on these lines has been carried out during the list three seasons by the Dairy Research Institute at Massey College. This field of inquiry is being continued. Owing to the milcl ripening process used with cream in New Zealand butter factories, only a small amount of diacetyl and, presumably, of tlie otlipr at present unknown flavouring substances, is formed, and this partly disappears during frozen storage. Consequently, the higher the amount initially present, the higher the amount, and also the flavour, after storage, Though it might he thought possible to develop a high degree of acidity, and then retain the flavour while neutralising back to a safe acidity to retain keeping properties, this is only

partly successful, and _ does not give a product of the Danish type. The “starters” in use in New Zealand butter factories have equally as good flavour-producing properties as those reported elsewhere, and the possibility of producing more of the flavouring substances at lower acidities of the cream when it is churned, are under investigation. The property which all butter “starters” have in common is that they do not produce the aroma substances until the acidity is very high, and this considerably complicates experimental work.