Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-03-21
VERMONT wATCHMAN & STATE JOURNAL, WEDNESDAY, MARC1

to the consumer, the lazy dairymen and
dairywomen will prefer the South Ameri-
can dye. The "trouble does not come
in, in such cases, till the butter is offered
for sale.
The annatto in the various Butter Col
ors made from it, is cut with strong |
alkali, so that the common plea that annatto |
is itself harmless falls to the ground, it be-
ing well understood that this alkali unites |
with the butter to form soap, not very |
savory or wholesome article of diet The |
fact is, that annatto will not color butter |
well unless it is thus cut !" and even then |
it is almost impossible to hit the right shade |
by mixing it with the cream before churn-
ing, because the different degrees of alkaline
strength in different samples of "Butter |
Color" give it different degree of affinity |
for the butter. And in every case where |
the color is added to the cream, the greater |
part of it is always left in the buttermilk,
spelling it for cooking purposes, though it
will color the bones of pigs fed with it very |
neat shade of orange.
The color of carrot acts Just the reverse of
this. 1t has a natural tendency or attrac-
ton for the fatty element of the cream, and
when only the proper quantity is used
scarcely an atom is left of the buttermilk.
But the chief advantage of the carrot
color is, that it gives just the right shade,
and that this shade neUer changes from keep
ing. 1t adds nothing offensive to the butter,
and leaves nothing nasty in the buttermilk.
As to the trouble of using carrot color, it
is not of enough consequence to any, except
very lazy people, to lead them to chose an
natto dye in its place. If you raise the
right kind of carrot, one that has been
bred for cooring, but a small amount is
required This should be grated on a large
tin crater. (Some dairymen men use cheap
little machine). Steep the grated carrot
ten or fifteen minutes in blood-warm milk,
and then strain it through fine muslin,
squeezing it gently to extract the color.
Add this to the cream and proceed with
your churning with the certainty that your
butter will be of ddndelion, and not of
salmon yellow.
The Early French Horn carrot is the right
sort to use. All the better if you each year
select the darkest roots to set for seed or
get the seed from those who have made
practice of raising this variety of carrot es-
pecially for dairy use. One carrot for six
pounds of butter, little more or less, is
about the quantity required to give the right
shade.
A writer on this subject recently remarks
while recommending the use of annatto, that
he is perfectly satisfied with the Perfected
Butter Color but there are others who are
not satisfied, and were the conditions the
same in our case as in theirs, probably we
shoald come to the same conclusion" That
is precisely it, The writer is one of those
who live near the city and markets his but
with the salt and works it in, which is the
best way, if annatto is used at all. But he
slaps those who do not agree with him rather
unkindly, when he says, d" Too many makers
show very little skill or taste in giving their
butter the desirable shade. Such will or
dinarily succeed better with carrot" We
know for certainty that the great majority
we might say nearly all-of the Vermont
dairymen who make fancy or gild-edged
butter, use carrot as color, and cannot be
persuaded to touch annatto for that purpose.