Information AboutButter |
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.]] Butter is made by and a Condiment , as well as in Cooking applications such as baking, sauce making, and frying. As a result, butter is consumed daily in many parts of the world. Butter consists of Butterfat surrounding minuscule droplets consisting mostly of Water and milk Protein s. The most common form of butter is made from Cows ' milk, but it can also be made from the milk of other Mammal s, including Sheep , Goat s, Buffalo , and Yak s. Salt , Flavoring s, or Preservative s are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces Clarified Butter or '' Ghee '', which is almost entirely butterfat. When Refrigerated , butter remains a solid, but softens to a spreadable consistency at Room Temperature , and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). Butter generally has a pale Yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. The color of the butter depends on the animal's feed and is commonly manipulated with Food Coloring s in the commercial manufacturing process, most commonly Annatto or Carotene . The term "butter" is used in the names of products made from , a compound found in Rancid butter and dairy products. BUTTER PRODUCTION See Also: Churning (butter) , and undamaged fat globules. In the finished product, different proportions of these forms result in different consistencies within the butter; butters with many crystals are harder than butters dominated by free fats. Churning produces small butter grains floating in the water-based portion of the cream. This watery liquid is called . This consolidates the butter into a solid mass and breaks up embedded pockets of buttermilk or water into tiny droplets. Commercial butter is about 80% butterfat and 15% water; traditionally-made butter may have as little as 65% fat and 30% water. Butterfat consists of many moderate-sized, saturated Hydrocarbon chain fatty acids. It is a Triglyceride , an Ester derived from Glycerol and three Fatty Acid groups. Butter becomes Rancid when these chains break down into smaller components, like Butyric Acid and Diacetyl . The density of butter is .911 g/cm³, about the same as ice. TYPES OF BUTTER Before modern factory butter making, cream was usually collected from several milkings and was therefore several days old and somewhat fermented by the time it was made into butter. Butter made from a fermented cream is known as cultured butter. During fermentation, the cream naturally sours as Bacteria convert Milk Sugars into Lactic Acid . The fermentation process produces additional aroma compounds, including Diacetyl , which makes for a fuller-flavored and more "buttery" tasting product.McGee p. 35. Today, cultured butter is usually made from pasteurized cream whose fermentation is produced by the introduction of '' Lactococcus '' and '' Leuconostoc '' bacteria. Another method for producing cultured butter, developed in the 1970s, is to produce butter from fresh cream and then incorporate bacterial cultures and lactic acid. Using this method, the cultured butter flavor grows as the butter is aged in cold storage. For manufacturers, this method is more efficient since aging the cream used to make butter takes significantly more space than simply storing the finished butter product. A method to make an artificial simulation of cultured butter is to add lactic acid and flavor compounds directly to the fresh-cream butter; while this more efficient process is claimed to simulate the taste of cultured butter, the product produced is not actually cultured but is instead flavored. Today, dairy products are often Pasteurized during production to kill Pathogen ic bacteria and other Microbe s. Butter made from pasteurized fresh cream is called sweet cream butter. Production of sweet cream butter first became common in the 19th century, with the development of Refrigeration and the mechanical cream separator.McGee p. 33. Butter made from fresh or cultured unpasteurized cream is called '''raw cream butter'''. Raw cream butter has a "cleaner" cream flavor, without the cooked-milk notes that pasteurization introduces. Throughout Continental Europe , cultured butter is preferred, while sweet cream butter dominates in the United States and the United Kingdom . Therefore, cultured butter is sometimes labeled ''European-style butter'' in the United States. Raw cream butter is virtually unheard-of in the United States, and is rare in Europe as well.McGee p. 34. Several spreadable butters have been developed; these remain softer at colder temperatures and are therefore easier to use directly out of refrigeration. Some modify the makeup of the butter's fat through chemical manipulation of the finished product, some through manipulation of the cattle's feed, and some by incorporating Vegetable Oil s into the butter. '''Whipped butter''', another product designed to be more spreadable, is aerated via the incorporation of Nitrogen gas— normal air is not used, because doing so would encourage Oxidation and Rancidity . All categories of butter are sold in both salted and unsalted forms. Salted butters have either fine, granular Salt or a strong Brine added to them during the working. Nations that favor sweet cream butter tend to favor salted butter as well, possibly reflecting the blander taste of uncultured butter. In addition to flavoring the butter, the addition of salt also acts as a Preservative . Another important aspect of production is the amount of Butterfat in the finished product. In the United States, all products sold as "butter" must contain a minimum of 80% butterfat by weight; most American butters contain only slightly more than that, averaging around 81%. European-style butters generally have a higher ratio of up to 85% butterfat. Clarified Butter is butter with almost all of its water and milk solids removed, leaving almost-pure butterfat. Clarified butter is made by heating butter to its melting point and then allowing it to cool off; after settling, the remaining components separate by density. At the top, Whey proteins form a skin which is removed, and the resulting butterfat is then poured off from the mixture of water and Casein proteins that settle to the bottom. Ghee is clarified butter which is brought to higher temperatures (120 °C/250 °F) once the water has cooked off, allowing the milk solids to brown. This process flavors the ghee, and also produces Antioxidant s which help protect it longer from rancidity. Because of this, ghee can keep for six to eight months under normal conditions.McGee p. 37. HISTORY ''.]] Since even accidental agitation can turn cream into butter, it is likely that the invention of butter goes back to the earliest days of Dairying , perhaps in the Mesopotamia n area between 9000 and 8000 BCE . The earliest butter would have been from Sheep or Goat 's milk; Cattle are not thought to have been Domesticated for another thousand years or so.Dates from McGee p. 10. An ancient method of butter making, still used today in some parts of Africa and the Near East , is shown in the photo at right, taken in Palestine . A goat skin is half filled with milk, then inflated with air and sealed. It is then hung with ropes on a tripod of sticks and rocked to and fro until the butter is formed. | ||||||||||||||||||
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