The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-08-11
Effect of Salt on Butter.

Few butter makers think of the effe ct
the salt may have on the butter, how
much mischief may be done by the use
of poor quality of salt after all the
pains one has taken to carry the cows
and the milk and the cream through In
the best possible manner. Few, too,
really understand how the salt acts in
the butter, and what is the real purpose
of it, or how it may affect the character
of the product. And yet it is one of
the most important things in the but
ter-naking. To hundred pounds of
butter we use six pounds of salt. This
in itself is serious thing to think of.
Six per cent of bad salt is readily seen
to be quite sufficient to completely ruin
all this quantity of good butter, and yet
it is rarely considered as being worth
ones notice.
There is salt, and salt. Some good,
some very bad, for when salt is bad it
is very bad-for butter. The common
est impurity in salt is the chloride or
the sulphate of lime. Either is one of
the worst impurities that can be added
to these exceedingly delicate fats.
Either of them has very bad effect on
the flavor and appearance of butter,
making white specks in it, and giving
it bitter flavor. 1t is almost impossi-
BILE to avoid patches or spots in the but.
ter when these impurities exist in the
salt.
Salt is used as an antiseptic, that is,
to prevent decomposition of the butter
by exposure to the air, or TO the minute
quantity there may be in it of Tactic
acid, which is one of the most active
ferments that exist in milk, and of
which it is impossible to exclude every
trace by any amount of washing the
butter. 1t does this, not by uniting
with the butter, but by becoming dis
solved in the water of it, and forming
coating over and around every minute
particle of the grains, or between the
threads or fibers which are made by the
pressing of the globules out into such
form in the working of the butter.
If one takes thin slice of well-made
butter it will be impossible to see or
drain from it single minute drop Of
water in the mass. But put it under a
microscope, or look at it with COM
mon magnifying glass, and we see bun
dies of threads, as it were, twisted and
woven together, and lite gems Of
| OllShthOpp thtOk WONCh hbiOhS bhOoO
| ibers, as the lights reflected from them.
These are the minute drops of brine
made of the water in which all the salt
has been dissolved, and they COM
pletely envelop the particles or threads
of the butter. Thus they protect these
from contact with the air. The air we
know is filed with vast number Of
minute germs floating in it, as we see
when beam of light comes through a
small hole into darkened place. 1t is
only thus that these bodies are visible
to the unaided eye. Among them
are myriads waiting to get into contact
with this or that substance for which it
has some prediction, some purpose to
effect upon it. But salt is deadly to
these organisms, and when the butter
is we'll coated with this brine as we see
it in the butter, these germs have a
great difficulty in getting in their work
upon it, and 80 the butter is saved.
Hence when the butter is completely
enveloped, every small particle of it, in
this brine, it is safe from these injuri-
GUS germs lying in wait for it. And so
we use the salt for this purpose.
But what if the salt itself is impure?
Then the butter is acted upon in va
rious ways. Some impurities of salt
are bitter, as the magnesia that is often
in it. Some impurities make it greasy,
as the potash often in the salt. The
lime only makes it white, and hence
the white patches so often seen in win
ter butter, or indeed in summer-made
as well, when the salt is not perfectly
pure, and this is quite rarely. This i'm
purity is indispensable in the cheaper
kinds of salt. The magnesia in potash
salts in it are soluble in water at very
slightly different temperature than that
of the perfect solubility of the salt, and
thus it is that while these impurities
may be precipitated from the brine at
one moment, they are quickly dissolved
again when the temperature changes a
few degrees. The attention needed to
secure this proper temperature and
watch the process carefully, costs
money, and hence the purest salt can
not be procured at the same price as the
inferior qualities may be. Thus one
must be extremely careful in getting
only the actually pure salt for fine work
in the dairy, and as it is only fine work
that pays, this choice of pure salt is in
dispensable to profit.-H. Stewart, in