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COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

COMPARISON OF WOODS FOR BUTTER BOXES

BULLETIN No. 369 August, 1923

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY 1923

COMPARISON OF WOODS FOR BUTTER BOXES

G. D. TURNBOW

Butter boxes used in shipping and storing butter in California, are usually made of spruce which is largely shipped in from other states particularly from Washington and Oregon.

With the recent war, however, there came an acute shortage of spruce on the Pacific Coast with a corresponding increase in price. The commercial manufacturers did some work in an attempt to find a substitute for spruce, but the trade did not readily accept a change. There was a demand from both the lumber and the butter interests for investigation to find a suitable substitute for spruce.

The production of spruce is somewhat limited in California, but there is an abundance of white fir and a limited amount of cottonwood available. However, the creamerymen have not used white fir and cottonwood to any extent for butter containers, on account of the belief that these materials would impart a wood flavor to the butter.

Inasmuch as nearly all of the butter made in this State is shipped or stored in wooden containers, the use of white fir or cottonwood, would mean first, a material saving to the butter manufacturers in marketing expense, and second, an opportunity for the lumber interests to use a large amount of raw material already available in California, which heretofore had been of little commercial value or use.

BUTTER ABSORBS ODOR

The volatile fats in butter have the property of absorbing odors, which often results in an undesirable flavor. Great care then must be exercised in keeping butter from coming in contact with materials that will impart a foreign flavor. Butter need be exposed to foreign odors only a short length of time before the flavor is permanently affected.

Experiments were conducted, therefore, to determine whether white fir or cottonwood would impart a flavor to the butter and also to determine the possibility of storing butter in cubes and marketing it in 60-pound cases when these woods were used.

This experiment was suggested by Mr. M. B. Pratt, Deputy State Forester. Through his co?peration, all box material was furnished by the Swayne Lumber Company of Oroville and the Capitol Box Factory of Sacramento.

CUBE BUTTER IN COLD STORAGE

The butter for cold storage was packed in white fir, cottonwood, and spruce containers holding ten pounds each. Both seasoned and unseasoned woods were used in each of the three methods of packing.

They were filled with the butter from one churning which scored 92 1/2 after being chilled for 24 hours at 50? F. and were shipped immediately after the first scoring to a cold storage plant in San Francisco and stored at a temperature of 12? F. The butter was scored monthly for six months. The summary of the scoring is given in table 1.

TABLE 1

Influence of Various Woods on Cube Butter in Storage

This scoring was done by T. J. Harris, San Francisco Dairy Produce Exchange, S. L. Denning, Oakland, and G. D. Turnbow, College of Agriculture, University of California.

Table 2 gives a summary of the scores showing the effect upon butter in containers with varying treatments. When paraffined, the inside of the boxes was painted with the paraffin at 240? F.

TABLE 2

Influence of Various Woods on Butter Packed in 60-Lb. Boxes

Butter scored by J. C. Marquardt and G. D. Turnbow of the College of Agriculture, University of California.

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