Real Butter! With Pictures



 

 

This is the starting product. A gallon of real milk. The top part is cream, the lower half is milk. When the two are separated you have cream and skim milk. The cream is what gives the milk flavor so when we make butter I drink the milk but I don't enjoy it.

 

This is us skimming the cream off the top. It's very thick compared to what you are probably used to from the store. From here we separate it in to two mason jars that are both half full.

 

 

 

 

We then put lids on the jars and shook them for about 15-25 minutes. It was stunning for me. It was my first time. After about 10 minutes I began to wonder if I was doing something wrong, I couldn't see that anything was happening. Then all of a sudden I noticed a lump in my jar. I tilted the jar over on it's side and I could see that there was a very large lump of butter beginning. We both became very excited, each of us was doing one. By the time that twenty minutes had passed we were just making sure that we had shook it enough, being as it was our first time, we weren't sure when to stop.

We were both very surprised by how much of the cream became butter. Both jars together only created a half cup of "butter milk". "Butter milk" is what they call the milk that is left over after making butter.

 

 

 

 

 

A view into one of the jars.

 

 

 

A view into the other jar. 

 

 

 

 

Both jars side by side

 

  

 

 

This was us straining a jars worth of butter, getting the buttermilk.

 

 

 

 

This was us washing one of the jars worth of butter, cleaning it so that there was no buttermilk left on it at all.

 

 

 

And this is the final product, a jar full of butter!

 

 

Elizabeth and I are eager to make butter again. We found our Dazey butter churn hiding in a box in the garage. We really want to use it. It should be much easier on our wrists. I'm not sure when we'll get a chance to do that. I had hoped that it would be easier for us to get an extra gallon from our source but it's proven to be difficult. And neither of us really want to waste a gallon of drinkable milk. The skimmed milk is very unappetizing.

 

A note about real butter:

 

Do not keep it out like you do store bought butter, this butter will not keep at room temperature.

That being said, you will want to leave this butter out for a while before you intend to use it for a meal, or for bread, etc. It becomes very hard and difficult to spread when cold. Of course a simple remedy for a slice of bread is to put some on a slice as best you can and to microwave it. It doesn't take long at all. Simply taking it out from the fridge and letting it sit for a half-hour is plenty of time for it to become spreadable. It's very smooth. If you practice this, I encourage you to consume the butter inside of a week and certainly by the end of two.

 

Or you can try a French Butter Bell. We've not tried that yet for real butter. If you have please send us a message, we want to hear about it!

 

 

Because your butter will not have any preservatives in it, it will not keep in your fridge as long either. I think that if we had made one mason jars worth that we would have enough to last us two weeks. We eat like birds, so if you like butter, feel free to make as much as you want. Obviously with the cream from one gallon, you'll have a mason jar full! A quart of butter.

 

The truth:

This butter tastes exactly very similar to store bought, however if you know the cow that you got your milk from, then you know for a fact that this is the real deal and that it is much more nutritious and healthy for you. It's worth the fun of making it with the family, that's for certain!