INFLUENCE OF MILK-PRODUCTION ON THE QUALI TY OF WHIPPING CREAM

Commercial samples of whipping cream from the food retail trade in Kie l exhibited considerable variations as regards quality. They could be partly explained by varying fat contents; here a fat proportion exceed ing the minimum legal requirements of 30 % was found to be advantageou s. The repeatabilities of the DLG-(German Agricultural Society) whippi ng cream test were calculated for the parameters ''whipping time'', '' overrun'', ''foam stability'' and ''serum separation after 2 h'' by me ans of 56 parallel determinations. They were high and ranged between r = 0.84 and r = 0.94. In order to examine the influence of milk produc tion on the quality of whipping cream bulk milk samples, taken monthly on 40 dairy farms in Schleswig-Holstein, and individual samples, obta ined at monthly intervals from 118 cows of the experimental herd Schae dtbek, were processed into whipping cream and analysed according to th e DLG-test conditions. Of the factors of influence feeding proved to b e highly important. As a result, worse whipping properties were observ ed in summer than in winter. Within the summer and the winter period c ertain differences were established between the farms, which were, how ever, not consistent enough to classify the farms on the basis of sing le findings. Also between the milks of individual cows of the experime ntal herd certain differences were observed, but also here the agreeme nt of the monthly findings was poor, so that selection of defined cows for this production line appears to be of no interest. Apart from its fat content the quality of the whipping cream was influenced by milk fat hardness and the protein content. Using a rapid method milk fat ha rdness was measured by means of a penetrometer. Hard milk fat led, wit hout exception, to better physical whipping cream properties than soft milk fat. This finding was also confirmed in feeding trials. A high p rotein content of milk proved to be advantageous for foam stability, h igh cell counts resulted in worse whipping properties. Problems encoun tered with the whipping cream quality can be normally solved by increa sing the whipping cream fat content, a solution which can be supported by selecting harder milk fats.