Butyl Ester Preparation for Gas-Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Fatty Acids in Butter

Butter oil is extracted from butter with hexane, using a rolling boil technique. The resulting 10% butter oil in hexane is converted to butyl esters, using butanol in place of methanol as specified in the official final action method, 28.063-28.067. A water wash and centrifuge technique is used to remove butanol from the n-hexane-butyl ester solution. Conversions to butyl esters are quantitative by the boron trifluoride, sulfuric acid, and sodium butoxide procedures. When methyl ester methods are used, there are serious losses of the short chain volatile and water-soluble acids, making the methyl ester procedures questionable for determining the authenticity of milk fat.