Dry matter

Plant or animal tissue residue after it has been heated to a constant weight and all of the moisture in the sample has been driven off by gentle heat.

• d. m. basis — a method of expressing the concentration of a nutrient or poison in a feed, by expressing its concentration in terms of the dry matter content.
• d. m. intake — the feed intake, usually per day, expressed in terms of its dry matter content.

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The dry matter (also known as dry weight) is a measurement of the mass of something when completely dried. For example, the dry matter of a cheese is its solids, i.e. all its constituents excluding water. Dry matter contains proteins, fat, milk sugars and minerals. To determine a cheese's fat content, one analyses its dry matter to obtain the fat in dry matter (abbreviated FDM) proportion, and then takes into account the water present in the cheese.

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