HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Linzell, J. L. Articles by Fleet, I. R. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Linzell, J. L. Articles by Fleet, I. R.

Accuracy of the Micromethod of Estimating Milk Fat Concentration by High-Speed Centrifugation in Capillary Tubes

Institute of Animal Physiology, Babraham, Cambridge, England

ABSTRACT

Ganguli, Smith, and Hanson (3) have just described a method of estimating milk fat by measuring the proportion of cream after centrifugation of small samples of milk in capillary tubes. This method is identical with that described by us in 1964 (2) and Molnar and Poole (5) have confirmed our findings. Therefore, it is appropriate to report further experiments on the accuracy of the method with which we were originally able to measure the fat concentration only approximately (coefficient of variation of replicates 16% with goat milk), but very quickly and simply, in samples of less than 0.1 ml.

In our experiments, well-shaken samples of milk were drawn by capillarity into standard commercial microhematocrit tubes (15 by 1.5 mm od), one end sealed in a flame, and the tube spun at 10,000 g. Fifteen minutes was found to be sufficient to produce maximum packing of the fat particles except with rabbit milk, whereby only 95% of the final value was attained after 30 min of spinning.