Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1877-08-17

Made..Sixty Thousand Pounds Of Man.
ufactured Butter Sent Weekly from
the Philadelphia Abattoir and Sold in
England as 'sPrime Somerset
From the Boston Herald.
"There seems to be no limit to Ameri-
can ingenuity as manifested in the de-
velopment of articles of food for for
eign markets., said a leading Philadel-
phia exporter to Record newsgatherer
Thursday. Take England, for in
stance. The West supplies her with
meat New Jersey sends her cargoes Of
timed fruits, Maryland follows with
ship loads Of canned oysters and salmon,
and now Philadelphia threatens to cap
them all by supplying hundreds of thou
sands of English families with butter
for their breakfast tables.
'Why, do you know that more than
$4,000 pounds Of butter made from beef
fat is weekly consigned from here to
one London firm of provision merchants,
and it is only short time since an ord
er for no less than 4, 100000 pounds was
equally divided between New York
and Philadelphia firm.
There's many a family in England
who never dream that the Prime Som
erset' and the Dairy Worcestershire,
which they get at high prices from the
West End grocer is part and parcel OF
some well-fed animal that had breathed
in the City of Brotherly Love But
come with me and see for yourself. An
ounce of experience is worth ton of
imagination.
1t was not without some misgivings,
caused by the recent exposes of Thames
mud butter, made from the grease ac-
cumulated upon corpses as they tioat
with the tides in the dirty water of the
river, and the other connections with
which the English people are dosed,
that the reporter followed his inform
ant to the scene of the beef fat trans
formation, an extensive two-story build
ing on the bank of the Schuylkill, a lit
tie distance north of the West Phila
delphia abattoir.
The surrounding air was free from
the smells usually to be found in the
neighborhood of grease boiling establish
ments, and the floors of the rooms were
so scrupulously clean that it was diff
cult to imagine that naturally I'M
pleasant business could be so extensive
ly carried on with such clearly sur
roundings.
OF late years several patents have
been granted in various countries Tor
the manufacture of butter from beef
fat, but the process employed in this
city, which has its origin in the invent
i've genius of Frenchman named Gal
ouis, differs from the others, so it is
claimed, in the fact that the manufac
tured butter can be preserved for a
period of six months, or four times as
long as that prepared by any other pro-
cess. This is owing to the fact that the
whole operation is carried on at tenn
perature not exceeding 123 degrees, the
minimum of other processes being 25O.
The fat when received from the abat
toir is first carefully sorted, and the
commoner portion, which would not
melt at 125 degrees, thrown aside. The
remainder is then washed three times
in as many zinc lined tubs, conveyed by
an elevator to the next floor, where it is
chopped by 'masher' as fine as mince
meat. and then put into what are known
as jacketing tanks, similar to cauldrons
one inside the other, the inside one hay
ing capacity for holding 5000 pounds.
Steam is next introduced by pipes into
the space between the inner and outer
tanks, until the contents are reduced to
liquid mass. This is drawn off into
other tanks through pipes OF a filter
leaving a residium behind which is used
for fertilizing purposes.
In the second tank the same operation
is gone through as in the first, and the
oil is eventually drawn off into hand
trucks lined with zinc, holding about
200 gallons In these it remains until
it has cooled down and become perfect
ly hard, when it is put up in fve-pound
bags and subjected to hydraulic press
ure of 25O tons. The oil runs from the
press into tank at its foot, leaving a
further residium called serion, also
largely used as fertilizer. An elevat-
or next conveys the refined oil into the
lower story.
Twenty per cent. of milk is added
and the whole is subjected to the
churning process for 20 minutes for the
purpose Of giving it flavor 1t is then
drawn off and allowed to get hard. At
ter this it is laid out on tables and COW
cred with blocks of ice. Then it is
passed through a fine wire sieve to
clear it from the milk and ice, placed
on tables and crushed with rollers for
the same purpose. The last operation
completes the process, and the article
is ready for the market.
None of the article is used in this
country. AS fast as manufactured it is
securely packed in boxes containing
from 20 to Is pounds and shipped to the
cOnsignees