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Butter Manufacture

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Deosarkar S.S., Khedkar C.D. and Kalyankar S.D. (2016) Butter: Manufacture. In: Caballero, B., Finglas, P.,
and Toldrá, F. (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Food and Health vol. 1, pp. 529-534. Oxford: Academic Press.

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

 Author's personal copy
Butter: Manufacture
SS Deosarkar and CD Khedkar, College of Dairy Technology, Pusad, India
SD Kalyankar, Government College of Dairy Technology, Udgir, India
ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented
cream or milk. Conversion of milk fat into butter is a very old way
of preserving milk fat. Butter accounts for a major portion of the
nutritive value of milk. Butter is generally used as a spread and a
condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking,
sauce making, and pan frying. Butter consists of butterfat, water,
and milk proteins. Most frequently made from cow milk, butter
can also be manufactured from the milk of other mammals,
including sheep, goats, buffalo, camels, and yaks. The most
dominant source for production of butter today is bovine milk.
Throughout the centuries, butter was manufactured at farms in
small quantities with considerable variation in quality. In the
nineteenth century, industrial production of the butter started
through centralization and mechanization, which resulted in
substantial improvement in the quality of butter. The largest
butter-producing countries are the United States, Germany,
France, New Zealand, and Russia. According to the Codex
Alimentarius Commission under the joint FAO/WHO Food Stan-
dards Programme, butter is a fatty product derived exclusively
from milk. A 100 g portion of butter must contain a minimum
of 80 g fat and a maximum of 16 g water and nonfat milk solids.
According to the USDA, one tablespoon of butter (14 g/
0.5 oz) produces 420 kJ (100 kcal), all from fat, 11 g (0.4 oz) of
which 7 g (0.25 oz) are saturated fats and 30 mg (0.46 g) are
cholesterol. In other words, butter consists mostly of saturated
fat and is a significant source of dietary cholesterol. For these
reasons, butter has been generally considered to be a contributor
to health problems, especially heart disease. For many years,
vegetable margarine was recommended as a substitute, because
it is higher in unsaturated fat and contains little or no cholesterol.
In recent decades, though, it has become accepted that the trans
fatty acids contained in partially hydrogenated oils used in typical
margarines significantly raise undesirable low-density-lipopro-
tein (LDL) cholesterol levels as well. Trans-fat free margarines
have since been developed. Proponents of the consumption of
organic butter, such as the nutritionist Mary Enig, state that,
because butter is nutritious and ‘is rich in short and medium
chain fatty acids,’ this can have a positive effect on health and
prevent disease. Butter contains only traces of lactose, so moder-
ate consumption of butter is not a problem for lactose intolerant
people. People with milk allergies need to avoid butter, which
contains enough of the allergy-causing proteins to cause reac-
tions. Butter can play a useful role in dieting by providing satiety.
A small amount added to low fat foods such as vegetables may
stave off feelings of hunger.
Historical Background
The art of butter making has a long history. In India, ghee has
been a symbol of purity and an offering to the Gods – especially
Encyclopedia of Food and Health http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-384947-2.00094-5
The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534
Agni, the Hindu God of fire – for more than 3000 years. Refer-
ences to ghee’s sacred nature appear numerous times in the Rig
Veda, circa 1500–1200 BCE. The tale of the Lord Krishna during
his childhood stealing butter remains a popular children’s story
in India today. Since India’s prehistory, ghee made from butter
has been both a staple food and used for ceremonial purposes
such as fueling holy lamps and during funeral prayer.
Manufacture of creamery butter has been confined to the
‘colder’ regions of the world, where gravity creaming has been
successful. References to butter are found in the Old Testament.
In the past, butter was an article of commerce and a sign of
wealth. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century, factory
butter making was unknown. Most of the butter was made on
the farm from cream obtained by gravity creaming. The cream
was decanted into a wooden churn and subjected to shear and
mild aeration with the help of a stirrer or by rotating the vessel.
Once the fat formed clumps, butter milk was removed and the
fatty mass gathered and excess moisture removed. This process
hardly met modern hygiene standards. In most cases, cream
gets soured before converted into butter. The wooden churns
were extremely difficult to keep clean. Lack of refrigeration
would lead to swift growth and proliferation of putrefactive
organisms. Addition of common salt to the butter grains prior
to working was the only preservation methods available in
those days. The presence of significant quantities of lactic
acid from the sour cream would have contributed to the sub-
sequent preservation of the butter. Butter has also been stored
in containers immersed in peat swamps, taking advantage of
the lower temperature and virtually anaerobic conditions.
An ancient method of butter making, still used today in parts
of Africa and the Near East, involves a goat skin half filled with
milk, and inflated with air before being sealed. The skin is then
hung with ropes on a tripod of sticks, and rocked until the
movement leads to the formation of butter. The late nineteenth
century witnessed the inventions of mechanical cream separators
and mechanical refrigeration. The advantages of heat treatment
to improve the keeping quality of dairy products were soon
realized. This led to the establishment of creameries, where
milk was separated, and the availability of larger quantities of
cream led to the mechanization of butter making. Initially, the
churns were of wooden construction, essentially a scale-up of the
barrels used for hand production, but then were slowly replaced
by aluminum and then stainless steel until the technology was
overtaken in the second half of the twentieth century by the
development of continuous butter making processes. By the
beginning of the twenty-first century, batch churning had been
replaced in dairies by continuous churning processes.
Classification of Butter
Many types of butter are found in the market. These differ with the
type of cream from which they are made and with variations in
529
 Author's personal copy
530 Butter: Manufacture
the manufacturing process. Unless specifically mentioned, the
different kinds of butter may or may not have been salted. A
brief description of several kinds of butter is as follows:
• Pasteurized cream butter: Usually made from pasteurized
sweet cream. Such butter has a milder flavor than that
made from similar cream not pasteurized.
• Ripened cream butter: Made from cream in which a pleasant
delicate aroma has been developed before churning by
ripening (i.e., inoculating the cream with a lactic culture
and holding it at a desired temperature). Properly made,
ripened cream butter has a delicate flavor.
• Unripened cream butter: Made from unripened cream. The
flavor of such butter is usually mild.
• Salted butter: Butter to which salt has been added.
• Unsalted butter: Contains no added salt.
• Sweet cream butter: In this case, the acidity of the churned
cream does not exceed 0.20%.
• Sour cream butter: Made from cream which has more than
0.20% acidity.
• Fresh butter: Such butter has not undergone cold storage.
(Usually, fresh butter is not kept for more than 3 weeks.)
• Cold storage butter: This butter has been stored at a temper-
ature of about
18  C (0  F) for some time. (Generally
cold storage butter is from 1 to 6 months old when offered
for retail trade.)
• Dairy butter (USA): This is butter made on a farm. It is
usually made from unpasteurized sour cream, which has
not been standardized for acidity. This butter generally has
a sour flavor due to the high acid content of the cream.
• Creamery butter: This is butter made in a creamery or dairy
factory. It is more uniform in quality than ‘dairy butter.’
Industrial Butter Making
There are two completely different methods for manufacturing
butter. These are the churning method and the emulsification
method. In the churning method, crystallization of the fat
takes place in cream, followed by a phase inversion in which
the oil-in-water emulsion of the cream is turned into a water-
in-oil emulsion by strong mechanical treatment. The fat con-
tent is then concentrated by draining off the buttermilk. The
butter is finally plasticized by mechanical working.
In the emulsification method, the aforesaid first three sub-
processes are carried out in reverse order. First, the fat emulsion
is concentrated to a fat content corresponding to the composi-
tion of the final product, then a phase inversion is carried out
followed by crystallization, and finally a coherent fat mass is
formed and plasticized (Figure 1).
Churning Method of Butter Manufacture
The basic principle of the churning method is that air is mixed
into cream where it forms foam. Simultaneously, some of the
fat globule membranes are disrupted leading to liquid fat being
squeezed out of the damaged fat globules and spread at the
interface of the foam making fat globules stick to the lamella of
the foam. By further agitation, the foam collapses, and the fat
The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534
globules are forced so closely together that they coalesce into
small lumps. These lumps are further pressed into small butter
granules.
A batch-type butter churn may vary in capacity from a few
liters to a maximum of about 45 000 l. These churns were
originally made of wood but later were replaced with stainless
steel. After cleaning and disinfecting the churn, it must be
specially prepared to prevent the butter from sticking to the
surface. With wooden churns, this is achieved by scalding with
boiling water and immediately cooling with chilled water. This
treatment leaves a film of water on the surface of the wood and
prevents the butter from adhering to it. All wooden equipment
must be kept wet until used.
Batch butter churns may be barrel or cone shaped with fixed or
rotating internal ‘workers.’ As the churn is rotated, the combined
actions of rotating and beating cause the cream to break, forming
the butter grains (fatty phase) and buttermilk (aqueous phase).
During the first few turns, gases (e.g., carbon dioxide from hetero-
fermentative fermentation) may be liberated from the cream. In
order to maintain an even pressure within the churn, it is neces-
sary to release these gases. This is done by depressing a small valve
in the lid of the churn. Each churn has an indicator glass to see
what is happening inside the churn. When hand churning, the
cream feels heavier when it begins to thicken. This takes about
15–20 min from the beginning of churning. The cream breaks
and forms small grains of butter which are clearly seen on the
indicator glass. The actual size of the butter grains varies according
to the type and size of the churn. For hand churning, the grains
should be kept small, approximately 3 mm in diameter – tradi-
tionally stated as the size of wheat grains.
Chilled water at approximately 5  C is used to harden and
control the size of these grains, as well as to remove the traces of
buttermilk. Washing reduces the yield and is not necessary if the
cream is of good quality and all the necessary hygienic precau-
tions have been observed. Traditionally, well washed butter will
have a longer shelf life than unwashed and overworked butter.
Salt may be added dry or in the form of brine as a final wash.
The addition of brine (10% solution) to butter grains has been
used to reduce the need for chilled water. This can be important
during warm weather when there is a lack of chilled water. It
prevents streakiness due to uneven mixing of the salt. The butter
grains are ‘worked’ to expel excess moisture, create an even, fine
distribution of water droplets, and produce a close textured,
evenly colored product. During the period of working, drainage,
and addition of dry salt, samples are tested to determine the salt
and moisture contents. The operator determines the ‘end-point’
of working when the moisture content is between 15.5% and
16% and by visual assessment of the butter. At this stage, the
butter is removed from the churn in readiness for packing. The
moisture content of butter must not exceed the legal maximum
limit of 16%. Manufacturers attempt to be as near that limit as
possible to ensure the maximum yield.
Pretreatment of the Cream Prior to Churning
It is necessary to concentrate the emulsion in milk to a fat content
of about 35–42 g/100 g or even higher in a centrifugal separator.
The cream is heated to 85–110  C for 10–30 s in a plate heat
exchanger in order to kill any pathogens and to reduce the load
 Author's personal copy
Butter: Manufacture 531

Receiving milk Receiving cream

Grading
Weighing
Preheating (35-40 °C) Sampling Neutralization
Testing

Separation (centrifugal)

Cream

Standardization (35-40%)

Pasteurization (82-88 °C/ no hold)

or vacreation

Cooling (20-22 °C)

Cooling (5-10 °C)

Ripening (20-22 °C)

Ageing (5-10 °C)

Churning

Washing

Salting & working

Packaging & storage (–23 to –29 °C)

Figure 1 Process flow diagram for butter.

of spoilage-type microorganisms. It is possible to combine high-
temperature-short-time (HTST) treatment with vacuum deodor-
ization, which is termed as vacreation. A vacuum chamber could
be inserted after the heating unit in the machine. Such treatment
might have a fine effect on the flavor of the butter, for instance, if
flavors originating from feeding of the cows occur. The system is
mainly used in countries where dairy cows fed on pasture with
strong tasting weeds, which cause off-flavors in the milk. The
cream is cooled immediately after heat treatment as churning is
impossible unless the milk fat is solidified. In one cooling
procedure, the cream is cooled directly to a low temperature
(4–5  C), kept overnight, and then churned. This treatment
results in formation of mixed fat crystals, also called corn
crystals, in which a considerable part of the low melting tria-
cylglycerols, due to the fast cooling, is trapped in a crystal lattice
formed by high-melting triacylglycerols. Butter churned from
such cream will have a lower fat content and, therefore, a very
firm consistency and rather poor spreadability. When milk is
converted to butter, four basic main changes – concentration,
crystallization, phase inversion, and plasticizing – are necessary.
Manufacturing Process
The cream treatment has a strong effect on both the butter-
making performance and the quality of the butter. It is

The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534

 Author's personal copy
532 Butter: Manufacture
performed in four main stages, namely pasteurization, vacrea-
tion, cooling, and microbial and/or physical cream ripening.
Pasteurization
Cream is separated from milk by centrifugation. Normally, the
raw milk is preheated to above 40  C to ensure that all of the fat
is in a liquid state so that the milk-fat globules are less suscep-
tible to shear damage. The optimum temperature for separation
is 63  C, higher temperatures causing denaturation of whey
proteins which, though not critical for butter making, may
adversely affect the properties of the skimmed milk. For batch
churning the cream may be separated at 35 or up to 40 g fat
100 g
1, while for continuous butter makers the fat content is
normally 40–48 g fat 100 g
1, depending on the particular
machine. In order to kill pathogens and technologically harm-
ful microorganisms, as well as to inactivate lipolytic and pro-
teolytic enzymes, the cream is heated to 85–110  C for 10–30 s.
A few very small manufacturers may batch pasteurize the
cream at 63–66  C for a minimum of 30 min. The minimum
treatment is at 72  C for 15 s, though most use a slightly more
severe treatment, such as at 74–76  C for 15 s as a common
practice when using the HTST treatment. Specially designed
plate heat exchangers may be used to minimize physical damage
to the fat globules. Severe heat treatments should be avoided to
minimize the generation of a cooked flavor and to minimize the
uptake of copper onto the fat globule membrane from the serum.
Vacreation
This process is applied when there are problems with taints in
the milk, whether from pasture weeds consumed by the cattle
or as a result of storage problems, and further treatment is
needed. Undesirable flavors arising from microbial action,
from high-temperature pasteurization, from the feed of the
cows, or from unpleasant aromas in the milking shed, are
removed. A vacreator is used for multistage vacuum treatment
of cream. This equipment has now been replaced by spinning
cone evaporators in which the volatile compounds are
removed from a thin film under vacuum. Where less severe
flavor problems may occur, the cream is heated to  90  C,
then flash cooled by spraying into a chamber where a pressure
of  20 kPa is maintained. The loss of water on cooling is
accompanied by reduction in any other volatile component.
However, this treatment also has drawbacks regarding butter
yield and basal moisture content.
Cooling
Following the pasteurization/vacreation stage, the cream is
shock-cooled to 6–8  C. However, if cultured cream butter
from a very ‘soft’ cream (pasture feeding) is to be produced,
cooling occurs at about 20  C. Then, the cream undergoes
physical and/or microbial ripening.
Butter from Sweet Cream
Sweet cream for butter making is potentially the simplest to
prepare. The hot cream should be cooled as quickly as possible,
usually within the plate heat exchanger used for pasteurization.
The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534
Milk fat contains a very wide range of fatty acids, and hence
triglycerides, crystallizing as a mixture of predominantly a- and
b-crystals. The continuing crystallization releases more heat,
mainly within 2 h from cooling, and causes the cream to warm
by about 2  C. The extent of the crystallization will depend on
the temperature and on the composition of the fat. Ideally, the
cream should be cooled from 4 to 5  C immediately after
pasteurization, so that even with the release of the remaining
latent heat the temperature should remain below 7  C. When
this is not possible, additional cooling should be provided,
either by cooling pads on the tank wall or by circulation
through an external heat exchanger. The cooled cream should
be held for at least 4 h before butter making to permit adequate
crystallization – at least 50% of the milk fat should be crystal-
line. Overnight aging is the preferred approach when butter
making is carried out on a single shift.
Ripened Cream Butter
The mechanization of butter making, particularly the introduc-
tion of pasteurization and adequate refrigeration, prevented
the development of acidity and associated fermented flavors
in the cream. In many markets, these flavors are highly desired
and steps were taken to reintroduce an appropriate microflora
and carry out a controlled fermentation. Pasteurization condi-
tions were usually more severe than for sweet cream; for exam-
ple, 90–95  C for 15 s or 105–110  C with no hold. The
increased protein denaturation reduces the redox potential,
aiding growth of the culture. Cooling is limited to about
20  C, with a typical fermentation time of 12–18 h depending
on the activity of the starter.
The culture normally consists of a mixture of mesophilic
lactic acid bacterial strains of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis and
Lac. lactis subsp. cremoris providing lactic acid while citrate
positive strains of Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacety-
lactis produce flavor compounds, predominantly diacetyl and
its precursor, acetoin. The inclusion of Leuconostoc mesenter-
oides subsp. cremoris or Leu. mesenteroides subsp. citrovorum
increases diacetyl production while avoiding a yogurt-like
flavor by reducing acetaldehyde to ethanol. The fermentation
must progress to a pH below 5.3 for the generation of diacetyl.
The physical ripening of the cream was originally developed
in Scandinavia (Alnarp method) and it helps to optimize the
consistency of butter. This process lasts several hours and
includes a sequence of hot/cold levels (e.g., ‘cold–warm–cold’
or ‘warm–cold–cold’). Without this procedure, the butter
would often be too firm or sometimes too soft and tend to
oil off, according to the largely varying milk fat composition.
The basal moisture content and the fat losses in the buttermilk
can also be influenced by physical cream ripening.
Continuous Butter Making
Continuous butter making machines began to be widely used
in the 1960s. These were so successful that, within a decade,
most of the batch churns used in creamery manufacture had
been superseded. The important advantages of these machines
are better hygiene, and control of quality and process efficiency
was constantly improved. In the past 55 years, the Fritz method
 Author's personal copy
of continuous butter making has become the leading technol-
ogy in Western Europe and many other countries. This method
is based on similar steps to that of the traditional batch
method, but converts relatively small quantities (at any point
of time) at a much higher rate, creating the potential for greater
production capacity and process control. This method gives an
hourly output of 5 tonnes and a production of more than 10
tonnes per hour is even possible.
Cream Feed to the Continuous Butter Making Machine
So as to operate optimally with a minimum of corrective action,
the continuous butter making machine must be supplied with a
consistent feed. It requires cream of consistent composition
(fat, pH), physical characteristics (viscosity, degree of fat crys-
tallization), temperature, and feed rate throughout the working
schedule. These requirements can be met by bulking together
the cream for a day’s production schedule in a single silo. The
cream can then be supplied within 0.5% to the machine by a
programmable-logic-control (PLC)-controlled, variable speed
pump. The pipelines should be designed and constructed to
ensure that the pump is neither starved nor receives excessive
shear exerted on the cream during transfer. Flow rates of
0.2–0.4 m s
1 are satisfactory for sweet cream with slightly
lower rates needed for cultured creams, depending on viscosity.
The most appropriate aging temperature is often lower than
the optimum temperature for destabilization of the cream in
the machine. It is expensive to introduce that energy by
mechanical action. This drawback can be corrected by passing
the cream through a preheater using warm water as the heating
medium. Small temperature differentials of 1–2  C should be
employed to minimize the risk of overheating. The cream
outlet temperature should be controlled within 0.25  C of
the target temperature. This temperature will vary with the fatty
acid profile in the cream. Higher temperatures are needed in
the winter to compensate for the greater proportion of satu-
rated fat, so that the temperature will approach that needed for
50% of the fat in the globules to be in the liquid state.
There is also a tendency for the cream feed temperature to
be lowered with increasing fat content. As a general rule, all
handling of cream prior to butter making should avoid damage
to the milk-fat globules, because damaged fat globules will
tend to agglomerate and may block the pipelines. However,
controlled destabilization has been used in the past as a pre-
treatment immediately before the machine to increase its pro-
duction capacity.
Fritz Process of Continuous Butter Making
The GEA Ahlborn (Germany), the Continab (Simon Freres,
France), the Pasilac (Denmark), and the Westfalia (Germany)
are the major manufacturers of continuous butter making
machines. Although the design features vary with some
minor differences, the basic principles remain the same. The
butter maker consists of: (1) the beating section, (2) churning
section, and (3) the working section. The basic sequence of
operations in the Fritz process starts with the feeding of the
cream into the churning cylinder. Due to the rapidly rotating
beaters (about 1000 rpm) in the cylinder, this process only
The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534
Butter: Manufacture 533
lasts a few seconds. Buttermilk and granules drop into the
subsequent separating section. This consists of a rotating cyl-
inder (35–42 rpm) in which after-churning takes place first,
that is, the granules are built up in size. Most of the buttermilk
is drained off at that stage. Chilled water circulates in the
jackets of the churning sections to minimize the temperature
rise in the butter. The butter granules then drop through a slide
into the first working section from where they are moved with
parallel contra rotating augers and start to form a continuous
mass, which is forced through a series of plates with orifices.
On the downstream side of the plates, cruciform beaters
contribute to the working and flow of the butter mass. There
are flutes in the auger sections to assist draining of the butter-
milk. The degree of working is controlled by the speed drive
and the pitch angle of the beater. At the end of the first working
section, salt is added, if required, as a slurry of 40–60% salt
through 1–3 injection points close to the final orifice plate. If
indirectly cultured butter is to be made, lactic starter cultures,
acid, and flavor concentrates are injected at the same points. In
this case, the remaining moisture content at these points (the
basal moisture content) must not be higher than 13.5%; oth-
erwise, the common maximum permitted water level of 16%
could be exceeded when adding the culture concentrate. For
this reason, the first kneader operating at low shear rates
presses as much of the residual buttermilk out as possible.
Before entering the second working section the butter mass is
‘evacuated,’ that is, exposed to a reduced pressure of
25–60 kPa, whereby its air content falls from approximately
4–7% (v/v) to approximately 0.1–0.5%. This helps avoid lam-
inations in bulk butter and confers a smooth though firmer
texture to it, which is said to be appreciated by the consumers.
Processing Variables
Butter yield and its properties, such as consistency, moisture
content, and oiling-off, are affected by numerous interrelated
process variables. These include the following.
Machine Variables
Machine variables include the beater speed, first kneader
speed, second kneader speed, and reduced pressure at vacrea-
tion, as summarized here.
There is an optimum beater speed at which the moisture
content is minimum. Higher speeds result in ‘overchurning’
and speeds below the optimum result in the butter moisture
content causing ‘underchurning.’ Both overchurning and
underchurning soften the butter mass, which in turn affects
the working efficiency.
As the speed of the kneaders is decreased, the time for
draining the buttermilk from the butter mass is extended and
the butter moisture falls. In order to have the option of cancel-
ing this effect for the second kneader, a drain cock at its bottom
side can be closed. Because it is generally easier to achieve low
moisture content in a hard than in a soft fat, the temperature of
the first kneader is reduced by injecting cooled water or but-
termilk. The kneader configuration influences the amount of
working given to the butter, which in turn affects the sizes of
water droplets. A significant fraction of too large moisture
 Author's personal copy
534 Butter: Manufacture
droplets (diameter >10 mm) allows microbial growth and
affects the storage quality of the butter.
Cream Variables
Cream variables include fat content, fat composition, the cool-
ing regime, and the salt content in cultured cream.
High cream fat contents are desirable because of higher
butter yields (about 0.2% fat losses in the buttermilk vs.
0.05% in the skim milk) and the lower incidence of off-flavors.
On the other hand, achievement of correct moisture content
(which also depends on the process variables) relates to the fat
in the cream, often at about 40–42%. At lower fat levels, the
energy demand may exceed the motor capacity, and the butter
tends to be underchurned. If the fat content is higher, it is
difficult to reduce power to the level required, and the butter
tends to be overchurned.
Proper destabilization and agglomeration of the fat occur at
an optimum solid-to-liquid fat ratio. At too high or too low
values of this ratio, higher beater speeds must be used. More
moisture is beaten into the butter, and more fat is lost in the
buttermilk. Hence, there is also an optimum cream temperature
in the range of 8–14  C yielding both a minimum basal moisture
content and minimum fat losses. However, oxidative (e.g., fishy)
flavors arising at higher temperatures must also be considered.
The optimum cream temperature, in its turn, is influenced
by the way it has been attained, that is, by the previous tem-
perature treatment. Because the solid to liquid fat ratio at a
given temperature depends on fat composition, numerous
machine and cream parameters have to be adjusted according
to the fat concerned.
Vacreation tends to increase the range of globule sizes.
Small fat globules are harder to disrupt than large ones,
hence the fat losses in the buttermilk are higher with smaller
ones. Very large fat globules, on the other hand, are easily
damaged under vacreation.
The presence of salt in cultured cream butter accelerates the
autoxidation, the inverse effect occurring with salted sweet
cream butter. Overall, butter making depends on numerous
interrelated factors which have to be carefully adjusted against
each other to keep the process performance and quality param-
eters within their optimum ranges.
Packaging of Butter
Butter packing may be accomplished in bulk or retail packs.
Because butter is relatively stable and the profitability is lower
than for many other dairy products, it has been used as a
balancing wheel for surplus milk fat. As such, the production
has commonly been out of balance with market needs; this is
particularly so in those countries where the dairy industry is
geared for export rather than for supply to the domestic mar-
ket. The butter is placed in bulk packs – in older and smaller
butter plants, the butter, possibly batch-produced, is packed
into 25-kg cartons. Originally, a loose parchment lining was
used, but this has been replaced by blue-pigmented polyethyl-
ene bags, as this gives better protection.
Nowadays, freshly churned butter is collected first in a butter
silo, with an auger to help feed the butter to the pump, providing
a break in the product flow so that any interruption in the
The Encyclopedia of Food and Health, (2016), vol. 1, pp. 529-534
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packing does not cause interruption. The bulk butter packing
uses two-stage filling to ensure accuracy and minimum give-
away. Smaller bulk packs can be produced to comply with man-
ual handling restrictions. The shelf-life of the bulk butter may be
extended considerably by storing it in frozen conditions at below

18  C.
Most retail butter is packed in either parchment or a
parchment-aluminum foil laminate. Parchment is cheaper
but is permeable to moisture vapor and ultraviolet rays so
that the surface of the butter can suffer from both surface
drying and oxidative rancidity, the latter being reduced by the
application of pigments such as titanium dioxide to the outer
surface of the parchment. Foil laminate protects the butter
from ultraviolet rays and only permits moisture vapor and
gas interchange at the seams, thus aiding in a longer shelf-life.
Some specialist butters may use transparent films. Though
the film gives good protection against moisture loss, the risk of
oxidative rancidity on the surface is higher than for parchment.
Preformed plastic containers, often polypropylene, are more
expensive and tend to be used for soft butters and hybrid prod-
ucts that would be too easily damaged in film wraps. Butter
portions, typically less than 20 g in weight, for catering and
institutional use, are filled either into foil laminates, where the
consistency on filling can be critical, or into plastic trays with a
foil or aluminum film cover, in a form-filled seal operation.
See also: Buffalo Milk; Butter: Properties and Analysis; Cream: Types
of Cream; Dahi; Dairy Products: Dietary and Medical Importance; Fatty
Acids: Essential Fatty Acids; Fatty Acids: Metabolism; Fatty Acids:
Trans Fatty Acids; Fermented Foods: Fermented Milks.
Further Reading
Aneja RP, Mathur BN, Chandan RC, and Banerjee AK (2002) Technology of Indian milk
products. Delhi: A Dairy India Publication.
Anonymous (2008) Cream processes for continuous butter production. Cherbourg:
Simon SAS.
Augustin MA and Versteeg C (2006) Milk fat: physical, chemical and enzymatic
modification. In: Fox PF and McSweeney PLH (eds.) Advanced dairy chemistry –
lipids, vol. 2, pp. 293–332. Springer: New York.
Clark S, Costello M, Drake MA, and Bodyfelt FW (2008) The sensory evaluation of dairy
products, 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Fox PF and McSweeney PLH (1998) Dairy chemistry and biochemistry. London: Blackie
Academic and Professional.
Frede E and Buchheim W (1994) Butterrnaking and the churning of blended oil
emulsions. Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology 47: 17–27.
Herrmann M, Godow A, and Hasse T (1995) Alternative butter production with scraped
surface heat exchanger. Deutsche Milchwirtschaft 46: 62–67.
Hill J (2003) The Fonterra Research Centre. International Journal of Dairy Technology
56: 127–132.
Kawanari, M. (1992). Study on the continuous manufacturing of butter from high fat
cream. Reports of Research Laboratory, Technical Research Institute, Snow Brand
Milk Products Milk Co., 98, pp. 35–110.
Relevant Websites
http://www.fil-idf.org/Public/Download.php?media¼39335 – International Dairy
Federation, IDF.
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/rsb/code/atcp/atcp085.pdf – The Wisconsin State
Legislation, U.S.A.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/2603984/2 – Nutrition Facts, India.