NEW ZEALAND BUTTER

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 46

NEW ZEALAND BUTTER

THE PUREST IN THE WORLD. A GREAT ADVERTISEMENT. New Zealand butter received a great advertisement in London last month by the lecture of Mr Wm. Jago, F.C’.S., F 1.C., at the Society of Arts on The : Chemistry of Confectioners’ Materials j and Processes.” I Speaking of the use of butter in coni fectionery processes, Mr Jago compared j the principal butters of the world, with i the result that New Zealand butter was i shown to bo tho purest, and eonse- ! quently the best suited for confectioni cry purposes.

Tho lecturer detailed the methods adopted in the manufacture of butter, and submitted samples of colonial and other butters for the inspection of his audience, amongst them being New Zealand, Canadian, Australian, Danish, Normandy, Irish, English, salt and fresh butters. Commenting on tho properties of butter, ho stated that for confotionors’ purposes water in butter was useless. The presence of large quantities of curd indicated inefficient manufacture, and excess of proteid matter might confer an unfortunate cheesy taste on the butter. Salt was added as a preservative, and also for flavouring purposes. The greater the proportion of fat, the butter contained, tho more valuable it was. He bad mentioned that butter differed from every other fat by the high Reichert-Meissl* value if possessed. The determination of Reic.iert Meissl value was, in tho case of butters, a most important estimation in

the table, which gave the analysis of various typical butters he had made. He was not going to attempt to quote the values ill anything like detail, but simply gave a rough outline of the values of the butters. The results of the analysis he had made of various butters were as follows:—Danish butter—l2 per ■ cent, of water, and 85.6 of fat, ReichertMeissl value 32. Normandy butters (two samples)—l2 and 10 of water, with 85 and 83 per cent, of fat, with a ReichertMeissl value of 31 and 33. Irish butter (nine samples)—Lowest percentage of water 14.5, 80 per cent, of fat and 4 per cent, of salt; highest percentage of water 20, and 72 per cent, of fat, with 7 per cent of salt. Siberian butter— Lowest percentage cf water 9.4, and the , highest 11.3. New Zealand butter (nine samples)—Lowest percentage rf water 7.2, the highest 8.1, with a fat percentage cf 90. The Siberian butter, he pointed out, had only a ReichertMeissl value of 26 against 32 in some of the other samples. A very fair average percentage of fat in butter was 87, and lie took that figure as representing what ho would describe as a good standard butter. Taking that figure,, it was comparatively simple to prepare a table from which they would at 01100 be able to say what percentage of fat any particular butter contained. They could also see—and this was a matter of importance to the confectioner—how many pounds of such a butter were necessary in order to produce a given richness in the cake. If they took, for example, a butter which contained 75 per cent of fat, they would find that it was only 86 per cent of the value of the standard, and that 1161 b of it would be- required to do 4 lie same work as a 1801 b cf butter of standard quality. Butters of the Siberian and Danish types run very close to this standard, whilst New Zealand butter, in which there was a percentage of 90 per cent, of fat, represented 103.4 per cent of the standard, and 96jib of it would do the same amount of work as 1001 b of the butter to which he referred.

The inquiry naturally arose what qualities of butter are required by the confectioner? A glance at tho goods produced gave the answer to the question. These goods ranged from the cakes of the most expensive character, containing the richest butter that it was possible to buy, to the cake containing the cheapest form of butter substitute. One could not pick out any special quality of butter and designate it confectioner’s butter. The confectioner was, after all, but the servant of the public; and witn an educated demand for articles of the best quality lie was prepared to get raw materials of the highest quality, in order to meet that demand- There was one point, hi connection with the use of butter for the manufacturer of confectionery. Some were defined as weak, whilst others were described as strong and waxy. The former became oily, and the latter remained tough. If paste were made from the weak butter it did not rise and become light, whilst the stiffer butters made a light paste and were retained by the articles when baking.' *Reicliort-?»ieissl value is described by the lecturer as follows:—“Fats wore compounds of the group of bodies known as fatty acids, with glycerine. Of this group of bodies some were readily volatile at the temperature of boiling water, vliilst others at the same temnorature remained fixed or non-volatile.' Butter was distinguished by containing a high proportion of such volatile acids. The exact determination of the volatile acids in a fat was a work of tediousness and of some difficulty. Tho test was made by taking a quantity of butter or of other fats and rendering it into a soap by the action of caustic potash. When they heard of tho Reichert-Meissl value of a lat they would understand that it was a test of the volatile acids that were derived from butter, and practically from butter only. The test, therefore formed a measure of the butteriness, if ho might use the phrase, of particular samples of fat.

Tor the extracts of this valuable address, published 111 tho “Baker and Confectioner” and the “Grocer.” two of the leading trade journals of London, we have to thank the Produce Commissioner of the Government in London