{"id":127,"date":"2014-06-25T14:43:28","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T19:43:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/?p=127"},"modified":"2014-06-25T14:43:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T19:43:28","slug":"bacteria-for-better-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/2014\/06\/25\/bacteria-for-better-butter\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacteria For Better Butter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Woohoo<\/a>

Woohoo – home made butter!<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the first time I read the “Little House” books as a child, I was\u00a0fascinated by butter making.\u00a0\u00a0We didn’t have a churn or dairy cows,\u00a0so\u00a0I learned to make butter by shaking whipping cream in a jar.\u00a0\u00a0I thought\u00a0home-made butter tasted fabulous when I was 8 years old, but when I grew up and made butter again, my homemade butter just didn’t taste quite as wonderful as I remembered.\u00a0\u00a0So what\u00a0do\u00a0people in the 21st century do when they have a question?\u00a0 They go on an\u00a0internet search.\u00a0 I was lucky enough to come across an old (30+ years old) article from Mother Earth<\/a> about butter making.\u00a0 Apparently the secret to better\u00a0tasting\u00a0butter (besides having your own dairy cow for fresh cream)\u00a0is CULTURED butter – made by\u00a0leaving your fresh\u00a0cream to sit out until it is\u00a0soured and then churning it.<\/p>\n

Terrific.\u00a0 Except I don’t have fresh, unpasteurized milk and cream\u00a0available – much less my own cow (yet).\u00a0 \u00a0 The internet did not fail me though and I came across a blog that had the answer I was looking for – YOGURT<\/a>.\u00a0 Adding yogurt with live cultures\u00a0and\u00a0then\u00a0leaving the mixture sit out until it gets a sour, tangy taste, \u00a0is the secret to going from\u00a0acceptable tasting\u00a0butter to butter with some zing.\u00a0 And\u00a0I even\u00a0used ultra high pasteurized whipping cream that was\u00a0available at the\u00a0store\u00a0to make my first few\u00a0batches of cultured butter and it did just fine – contrary to other people’s experiences.<\/p>\n

The photo is of\u00a02 cups of whipping cream mixed with about 5 ounces of Greek yogurt, with live cultures in it, after sitting out on the counter for 36 hours covered with an air-permeable cloth.\u00a0 It has thickened quite a bit since sitting out.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The cultured cream before churning.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u00a0also use\u00a0regular, plain flavor\u00a0yogurt instead of\u00a0thick Greek yogurt\u00a0and get\u00a0the same results.\u00a0 The live cultures\u00a0are what’s important.\u00a0 I don’t even measure, I just pour the cream into large\u00a0Mason jars, filling them halfway, plop a spoonful or two of yogurt into the jar, stir,\u00a0cover with a paper towel (to allow any gas buildup from the cultures to escape), and let the jars sit.\u00a0 The longer\u00a0it sits the more tangy the butter\u00a0will be,\u00a0so you can\u00a0experiment on\u00a0how long you prefer the\u00a0cream to sit before churning.<\/p>\n

The combination of being warm from sitting out for so long,\u00a0together with the yogurt cultures, made churning\u00a0faster than making sweet cream butter.\u00a0 It\u00a0took about 10 minutes to go from thickened liquid to separated butter and buttermilk in the jar.\u00a0 When I’ve used plain whipping\u00a0cream without culturing (which is how you make sweet cream butter), I’ve had it take a half hour or more of jar shaking to get it churned.\u00a0 Cutting down on churning time is a big plus in my book.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The butter after “churning” in a canning jar.<\/p><\/div>\n

You’ll need to drain the butter after churning – I use cheesecloth AND a fine mesh sieve set over a bowl to catch the buttermilk.\u00a0 We do NOT toss out\u00a0our buttermilk.<\/p>\n

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\"Draining<\/a><\/dt>\n
Draining the buttermilk from the butter.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

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\"The<\/a>

The final draining off of buttermilk<\/p><\/div>\n

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After draining, there is still some\u00a0buttermilk left in the butter that needs to be washed out, otherwise the butter goes rancid much faster.\u00a0 Using cold water\u00a0(refrigerator or iced water works best), stir and smush the butter around in the bowl of cold water.\u00a0 The water will turn a milky color.\u00a0 Pour out the water and repeat the process of pouring cool water into the bowl and squishing the butter around in the water\u00a0to work out the buttermilk.\u00a0\u00a0Continue\u00a0this rinsing process until the water is clear when you smush the butter around.\u00a0 The butter becomes more solid as it cools down during the cold water rinsing.\u00a0 In winter I sometimes have to add a bit of warm water to the washing because the cold\u00a0faucet water is so cold that the butter becomes\u00a0hardened too quickly before the washing is complete.<\/p>\n

\"Rinsing<\/a>

Washing the butter – the first rinse has the most buttermilk as you can see by how white the water is.<\/p><\/div>\n

After\u00a0washing the butter, you can add salt to it or leave it plain depending on your tastebuds.\u00a0 Some types of cooking and baking are better if unsalted butter is used.<\/p>\n

Salt is a preservative and will keep your butter fresh longer, particularly\u00a0if you use larger quantities in it.\u00a0 Before refrigeration was common,\u00a0there were recommendations to salt butter very heavily or to keep it submerged in a salty brine<\/a>.\u00a0 When a new batch of butter\u00a0was taken from storage, they would\u00a0wash the butter again to get enough salt out of\u00a0it to be able to use it.\u00a0 You can also freeze your butter or clarify your unsalted\u00a0butter<\/a> (clarified butter\u00a0also goes by the names of “drawn butter” and sometimes “ghee”) to increase storage life.\u00a0 There is also “canned” butter <\/a>that you can make,\u00a0but in some cases it may not be the safest option depending on how you choose to can it.<\/p>\n

If you divide your butter up\u00a0into\u00a0portions by weight,\u00a0it makes it\u00a0easier to use your homemade butter in place of store-bought butter in recipes.<\/p>\n

And what to do with\u00a0the buttermilk you drained off?\u00a0\u00a0The buttermilk\u00a0keeps for a good long time\u00a0in the refrigerator and we use it whenever we have a recipe for sour milk\/buttermilk and even as a special orange-buttermilk-honey drink that I’m fond of.\u00a0 It is not as thick as the cultured buttermilk you get at the store.\u00a0 I even use some of the buttermilk\u00a0for the live cultures when making sour cream\u00a0or another batch of butter.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

These photos were taken using the cheapest whipping cream available at the store and it still turned out great.\u00a0 If you use fresh cream or “better” quality cream like organic\/grass fed\u00a0cream, you’ll get a butter that is even more yellow and buttery tasting.\u00a0 You can also make butter from other sources of milk like sheep and goat milk.<\/p>\n

A butter bell is a great way to store your butter on the counter so it is still soft and can be used right away.\u00a0 If you use refrigerated water in the bowl and change it at least\u00a0every other day, you can keep your butter fresh much longer, even during the heat of summer, without having it in the refrigerator.\u00a0\u00a0Click here to go to a site that has photos of butter bells if you have never seen one.<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been making homemade butter routinely for a couple of years now and it is well worth the little bit of effort it takes.\u00a0 Plus, you know what you’re eating, unlike the various artificial butter flavored products with names of ingredients you can’t pronounce and have no idea what they are.<\/p>\n

Quick version of making homemade cultured butter:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Obtain whipping cream if you don’t have a dairy animal that you can get cream from.<\/li>\n
  2. Take a jar with a tight-fitting lid and fill it no more than\u00a0half full with cream.\u00a0 I usually use a quart Mason jar.\u00a0 If you fill the jar too full, you won’t have room to churn the butter in the jar.<\/li>\n
  3. Put a large spoonful or two of yogurt with live active cultures into the cream.\u00a0 You can also use live cultured buttermilk – like the leftover buttermilk\u00a0from the last time you made butter.<\/li>\n
  4. Mix the yogurt\/buttermilk into the cream.<\/li>\n
  5. Cover the jar with a cloth that is NOT air tight.\u00a0 I usually use a paper towel held in place by the ring of the canning jar.<\/li>\n
  6. Leave the jar on your counter at room temp for at least\u00a012 hours to let the bacteria grow and sour the cream.\u00a0 (Time on counter is based on your preference for how much tang you want in your butter and the room temperature.)<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. Once your cream is cultured, put the jar’s tight-fitting lid into place.<\/li>\n
  8. Shake your jar back and forth, up and down to churn the butter.\u00a0 You’ll feel the difference as the butter forms.\u00a0 At first it will just\u00a0slosh, then you’ll feel more of a solid thumping mixed with liquid.\u00a0 Keep going past this point\u00a0to finish the butter.\u00a0 By the end, you’ll have a much more solid mass surrounded by\u00a0buttermilk and you will\u00a0have felt\u00a0another change in the way it thumps and sloshes\u00a0when churning.\u00a0 That’s when it is done.<\/li>\n
  9. Drain the butter through cheesecloth or fine mesh sieve (I use both).\u00a0 Drain over a bowl if you plan on saving your buttermilk for us (recommended so as not to waste anything).<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. Put your drained butter into a bowl and wash the butter with cool\/cold water to get all the buttermilk out.\u00a0 Periodically drain out the dirty water and put in fresh water.\u00a0 The water will be milky at first but should be clear before you call your washing finished.<\/li>\n
  11. After your butter is washed, you can mix in a little salt (about 1\/4-1\/2 tsp is usually sufficient to enhance the flavor if you used 2 cups of cream), <\/em>or you can leave it unsalted.<\/li>\n
  12. Marvel at the wonderful tasting butter you’ve made.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since the first time I read the “Little House” books as a child, I was\u00a0fascinated by butter making.\u00a0\u00a0We didn’t have a churn or dairy cows,\u00a0so\u00a0I learned to make butter by shaking whipping cream in a jar.\u00a0\u00a0I thought\u00a0home-made butter tasted fabulous when I was 8 years old, but when I grew<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[139,150,135,151,36,5,134],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-farmlife","category-food","tag-butter","tag-churn","tag-cooking","tag-cultures","tag-diy","tag-homestead","tag-old-fashioned-skills"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/rinsing-butter.jpg?fit=2271%2C2005&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2wWew-23","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polarisstarfarm.com\/adventures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}