Following are major steps in Manufacturing/Processing of Butter:-
1. HOLDING: Cream is pasteurized for 2-4 seconds at 95º C and then the temperature is lowered to 4-5º C and that is kept for several hours to ensure uniform hardening of fat particles.
2. RIPENING: When the end product is going to be Lactic butter, only then this step is carried out, in which bacterial culture is added. In this case, the holding temperature will be 15-18º C for 3-4 hours before being cooled to 4-5º C. This gives butter a good flavour and the stage is omitted while making sweet cream butter.
3. CHURNING: It is carried out in big stainless steel containers holding about 100 gallons of cream and the internal churners pass through the cream. This breaks the layer of fat solids which are released and are combined to form a large group of butterfat. After about 30 minutes of churning the butter gets separated from butter milk and floats to the surface.
4. WASHING AND SALTING: The butter grains are now washed with ice cold water to remove any butter milk left on the surface of each grain, in order to maximize the keeping quality.
Salting is carried in two ways:
- By adding fine grains of dairy salt.
- By dipping butter grains into brine solution (salt + vinegar) for 10-15 minutes and allowing the butter grains to absorb it.