NEW DAIRYING ERA.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16712, 30 January 1926, Page 6

NEW DAIRYING ERA.

INCREASING THE OUTPUT. WONDERFUL NEW PROCESS. BIG FIELD FOR DEVELOPMENT. No. 1. In this and succeeding issues we are able to furnish our readers —and especially those directly engaged in the dairying industry, which is the backbone of Waikato's industrial prosperity —with a short series.of articles upon' a process for substantially increasing the ' monetary returns from the present supplies of milk, a process which undoubtedly opens up a new epoch for dairy farmers. It has long been recognised amongst both dairymen and dairy scientists that present known processes of manufacture of dairy products do not extract nearly the amount of valuable solids from the milk that the milk possesses. Although repeated efforts have been made to get everything out of the lactic fluid that it contains, so far these have been unsuccessful. By a process, however, recently patented by Mr Hector N. McLeod, who has been conducting experiments over a lengthy period in Wellington and latterly at Frankton, it is now possible to increase the output of cheese, at any rate, by at least 10 per cent. This may sound an extravagant statement to cheesemakers, but the fact is now being demonstrated daily in the experimental room of the N.Z. Co-operative Dairy Co.'s factory at Frankton, and is there for anybody who wishes to investigate.

Valuable Food Constituents,

The fact is well known that there is present in buttermilk, after the fat necessary to make butter has been extracted, valuable food constituents that have hitherto simply been poured down the drains at the rate of thousands of gallons a day or sold for. a nominal sum to stock-raisers. Mr McLeod's process is successful in extracting from both buttermilk and whey a large percentage of these additional solids. Steady, all-im-portant and exhaustive work has been done by Mr McLeod to establish the fact that these solids can be won and cheaply and effectively incorporated with full-cream milk cheese. It might be suggested that the incorporation of these additional solids would upset the balance of flavour and texture, but probably more gratifying than the fact that the output by this process is increased by 10 per cent., is that the new cheese is increased in nutritive value and exceedingly pleasant to the palate, and already where it has been placed on the market it has become highly popular. The successful tseting out has been proceeding for several montns at Frankton, and the results, under the supervision of Mr A. G. Cutter, a cheese manager of 25 years' experience, for the most part in Taranaki, warrant the statement that a new era of advance is opened to the dairy industry and that steps should at once be taken to generally apply the process.

Methods Explained

To make it clear to readers, the process of making butter may here be briefly outlined. Milk is separated into cream and skim-milk on the farm or at the skimming station. The cream is taken to the butter factory, where it is churned and the butter content taken out. Buttermilk is left. This contains some butter-fat, casein, albumin, sugar of milk and salts, such as citrates, chlorides, sulphates and phosphates. This buttermilk has in many localities, been found to be a waste difficult to dispose of. Left in the buttermilk arc constituents quite as important as those taken out for making butter. The albumin is largely in a solution form, while there is also a soluble casein content present. Each of these, as well as the sugar of milk, the salts, citrates, chlorides, sulphates and phospates, are of great importance in body-building. The present method of extracting the butter-fat alone is near perfection, but when the skim-milk and buttermilk residue are taken into consideration, it is found that there is an astonishing amount of recoverable solids of great food value. It will come as a shock to most dairy farmers to know that in the skim and buttermilk there are still about three times the quantity of solids left as of butterfat taken out. This is a scientific fact. Now, if these food solids could all be got out and if they, all told, realised as much as the butter does. then the return would represent cheques duoble the value of those now received. Thus they would become a potential gain to the butter-making industry of over £6,000,000 annually. Successful Recovery Mr McLeod's plant and process at work at Frankton is, without doubt, successfully recovering a substantial portion of these valuable food solids, and it has the' objective of ultimately recovering the whole of them. The plant is simple in design, so as to be easily worked In any factory. It consists merely of a pump and a precipitor. This precipitin' (so called because it brings about precipitation of i the line curd) receives the buttermilk from the pump. Considerable heat is here applied lo the buttermilk, many degrees above boiling point, and the milk, regeneratively cooled, is led to a settling lank, or alternatively to an extractor, where the extra solids obtained fire deposited or retained. These solids are in the form of a very fine curd, so fine that a few spoonfuls in a can of water give the latter a milklike appearance. This curd is added to milk in the vats, and in the skilled hands of the cheesemaker becomes cheese. The properties of the cheese so made vary a little from Cheddar cheese, and so cannot be graded on all fours with cheddar. To grade it for cheddar points would be like refereeing an "All Black" Rugby match by an Association referee enforcing Rugby rules, or judging Stilton on Cheddar points. Probably the main difference is owing to the most valuable new constituent of albumin, than which there is no finer body-builder. The virtues of this new constituent in cheese have yet to be made fully known to the public, in order that they shall lise the additional nutritive value which this "Zeala" cheese, as it is called, possesses. Considerable interest has been shown in the work which has gone on, and many leading men in Ihc industry have been impressed with the magnitude of the pecuniary gain it promises lo the farmers In the immediate future.

A further article dealing with this important subject will appear in .Monday's issue.