Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1875-11-24
Coloring Butter.

1t is unwise to pretend that any butter
which needs coloring to make it marketable
can be entitled TO rank as a strictly choice
article. Yet well made butter that is sweet
and good, with good grain, if it is pale in
tint, can be made worth several cents per
pound more in market by coloring, provided
this is properly done The eye guides the
other senses, and influences them so much that
such butter actually seems to taste and smell
sweeter after being colored, even to the one
who colors it,
There is considerable dispute as to what
is the best substance TO color butter with.
But the best dealers and most careful makers
unite generally in agreeing that the color
obtained from carrots of the proper kind
gives tho most natural, Interchangeable color,
and also imparts a slight grass scent aud
flavor, which is just what pale butter usually
lacks. This is the testimony, at least, of a
vast number of butter makers though
Others will claim that this apparent improve
ment in flavor il owing entirely 10 the mis-
leading of the other senses by the eye, mem
toned above. At any rate, butter properly
colored with carrot juice is not in any de-
gree injured in flavor and but slightly, if
at all, in keeping quality.
Yet coloring with carrot juice is not so
well understood as it ought to be and this
is the principal reason, aside from lazness,
why so many dairymen try losing expert
ments with the various golden compounds, "
"gilt edges" etc, etc, that are advertised.
These preparations are all derived from ar
natto, substance which is not yellow, but
red and which will never give a pcrma-
nent dandelion color" to anything, much
less to butter by chemicalizing anatto
can be made to yield color that appears to
be yellow when first used but keeping al
ways develops the red tint which makes
oolored butter even more unstable than the
palest uncolored.
Farmers generally should understand that
there is variety of carrot known as the
true butter carrot " entirely distinct from
common feeding carrots, which when grown
with care, selecting only the deepest tinted
roots for raising seed from, gives more than
double the colorng matter of the ordinary
kiuds. When used this carrot, after being
thoroughly washed, should be finely grated,
aud the juice expressed and added to the
cream in the proportion dictated by expert.
ence-more or less being used, according to
the deficiency of natural color in the butter
operated upon. As the trouble of thus pre-
pairing carrots is the reason why so many
are tempted TO make use of the penicous
arnatto compound, advertised in the news
papers, we wish TO say that carrot crater
FUSED and recommended by Mr.. Douglas and
many other prominent butter makers) can
be bought of all dealers in daiymen's sup
plies. Using this Crater in connection with
a simple lever press, such as any carpenter
will make in an hour, the coloring for
churning can be easily prepared in ten min
utes, or less, aud the satisfaction obtained of
knowing just what you are putting into.
your butter, what color ii is going TO i'm
part, and that this color will remain un.
changed for any length of tins. The red
dening Of all butter colored by arnatto,
when kept no matter how good the color
when first made, has cost the dairymen of
this state hundreds OF dollars.