Worldwide, butter is made from a variety of animal milk including cow, goat, camel, buffalo and sheep. The most dominant source for production of butter today is bovine milk.
The buttermaking process involves quite a number of stages. The continuous buttermaker has become the most common type of equipment used.
Fresh milk is first separated into skim milk and cream and the cream is then used to make fresh butter. Milk with a high fat content (Table 2) gives a higher butter yield. 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 susceptible to shear damage.
The cream should be sweet (pH >6.6, TA = 0.10-0.12 %), not rancid and not oxidized. The cream is cooled and kept in a transitional storage tank where the fat content is analyzed, and if necessary, adjusted to the desired value.
Preparation for butter production
