Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Coloring of Butter.

—The practice of coloring butter is founded on the fact that we are accustomed to form our judgment at once of the qualities of the article from the whiteness or the yellowness of its color. Whiter butter is less attractive generally than yellow summer or grass-made butter. The color has come to be important to the seller, and artificial means are found to regulate it.

The coloring is made as follows: About a pound of butter is melted, so that the heavier parts sink to the bottom, when the light, clear fat on the top is poured into another dish. In this fat thus poured off is put a piece of annatto about the size of a walnut, wrapped up in a linen cloth, and it is then again put over the fire. The coloring matter of the annatto strains through the linen cloth, and turns the butter brown red, when it is allowed to cool off. When the butter is to be colored, some of this brown red is melted, salted, and mixed very carefully into the butter after washing. The quantity of coloring matter used depends on the color which the maker wants to impart to his butter, and a little practice soon enables him to take the right quantity. Others pour the coloring matter directly upon the butter to attain the same end.

In coloring artificially it is important to get a uniformity of color, which is the result of very thorough working. Colored butter must not be marbled.

The cream is sometimes colored before churning. The annatto is put into a clean beech-wood lye, and as much of this colored and strained lye is taken as is necessary to produce the desired color in the butter. It is then churned as usual.

Turmeric is sometimes used instead of annatto for coloring butter. It has no advantage, however, over annatto.

In many sections the butter is colored with an extract of saffron in water, or of marigold, or with the juice of carrots, which is applied to the cream before churning.

The coloring adds nothing to the quality or the taste. It is done for the sake of the looks; but it gives the butter a deceptive appearance.