Section C. Dairy Chemistry: The chemistry of butter and butterfat

Abstract

Reviews of the progress of dairy science shortages it represents a major scientific, technical and economic challenge to the world's dairy industry. One of the highlights of technological progress in the period of this review has been the rapid expansion of the Meleshin continuous buttermaking process in the U.S.S.R. According to Kostygov (1957), Deputy President of the National Committee of Dairying, the number of continuous buttermaking machines in use in Russia rose from 342 in 1955 to 664 in 1956 and to more than 1000 in 1957. The aim is to have 2000 machines in production by 1965. More than 50,000 tons of butter were made in Russia by the continuous process in 1956. Continuous buttermaking has not expanded in Western countries. In the U.S.A. and Canada a recent unofficial report placed the number of Gold'n Flow Machines in use at 30, with six Creamery Package plants. In Australia and New Zealand no continuous process is being commercially used for butter: the Australian New Way continuous buttermaking plant based on the double-centrifuge principle has, ironically, found commercial application only in the manufacture of margarine. Technological progress in the latter countries has mainly centred round the introduction and development of large stainless steel churns up to 100-box (2^-ton) capacity (Loftus Hills, 1957), mechanical bulk wrapping and packing of butter (Anon. 1957), and the increasing size and complexity of dairy factories (Jackson, 1958). New books coming within the field of the review included volume n in the series The Lipids: their Chemistry and Biochemistry by H. J. Deuel Jnr. (1955). This 919page volume dealing with the composition and metabolism of lipids in the animal organism has a 20-page section on the synthesis and composition of milk fat. A third and revised edition of the well-known Textbook of Dairy Chemistry. Vol. I. Theoretical by E. R. Ling (19566) appeared with enlarged sections on the composition and chemical reactions of butterfat. A revised and enlarged third edition of Hilditch's (1956) Chemical Constitution of Natural Fats was also published; it has sections on the component fatty acids and glyceride structure of cow milk fat as well as other animal milk fats. Two new textbooks on butter by well-known German authors were Mikrobiologie der Butter by K. J. Demeter (1956) and Die Butter by W. Mohr and K. Koenen (1958), the latter volume of 628 pages covering a wide range of practical and theoretical aspects of buttermaking. Reports of the third All-Union Conference of Dairying held in Moscow in 1953 and the fourth All-Union Conference held in 1956 were published in Russian in book form. The former, of 370 pages, was briefly reviewed by King (1958); the latter contains 90 papers in 472 pages and both volumes have a number of contributions on the chemistry and technology of butter and butterfat. The proceedings of the 14th International Dairy Congress at Rome in 1956 included 53 papers on the technical problems of buttermaking. Jack & Smith (1956) reviewed the chemistry of milk ...

Section A. Physiology. Ruminant metabolism in relation to the synthesis and secretion of milk fat

“…The subject of milk fat was last reviewed in this journal 10 years ago when emphasis was given to methods of analysis and factors affecting the composition and utilization of butterfat (Pont, 1960). Since then much progress has been made in the physiology and biochemistry of milk fat secretion and the present review is an attempt to integrate this knowledge with a view to providing a basis for understanding the role of nutrition in milk fat secretion of the dairy cow.…”