How to Make Butter

[Helena]

We enjoy homemade butter. I just use heavy cream (whipping cream) and whip it till it turns to butter. Using an ice cold bowl and beaters makes it easy.

No commercial salt, no additives, and with fresh cream, it's delicious.

No need around here to worry about how long it keeps. It goes in a day or two.

 

[TanksHill]

I have made butter before with purchased cream. Deffinetly not worth the cost.

When you have a cow though, don't you end up with gallons of milk every day? What do you do with it all? I thought about getting a Mini Cow just so I did not get too much milk. I guess you can allways share and sell.

Do you allhave thi problem?

 

[Helena]

Tankshill, we get fresh cream and milk from a neighbor who has a cow. She usually has enough extra to sell. If you had a cow, I'm sure you'd get folks who'd want what you couldn't use.

 

[onebuggirl]

I only make homemade butter when we have a cup or more left of heavy whipping cream from making ice cream. The jar method works just fine if you place a large marble or 2-3 small marbels inside to help when shaking. Yes it is tiresome but think of all the calories you burn off and if you have the radio on you can rock to the music!! I add some honey once and all my guests loved the honeybutter! I pour off the water and used a cheese cloth to squeeze out some more. Lasted a week...we ate it all!

 

[Wifezilla]

I wrote an article last year about the economics of making your own butter....

http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2008/06/butternomics-economics-of-making-your.html

 

[onebuggirl]

I wrote an article last year about the economics of making your own butter....

http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2008/06/butternomics-economics-of-making-your.html

Great article...I want to see if a friend that milks cows for a job will let me come out to the farm and (I know the farmers too) let me milk a cow and use that for cheese and butter. I would pay them but it wouldn't be "selling" raw milk becuase they are friends and I will be doing the work and well there has to be a loop hole somewhere.

 

[Beekissed]

I have made butter before with purchased cream. Deffinetly not worth the cost.

When you have a cow though, don't you end up with gallons of milk every day? What do you do with it all? I thought about getting a Mini Cow just so I did not get too much milk. I guess you can allways share and sell.

Do you allhave thi problem?

Well, you can wean off a bottle calf from the livestock auction with it and raise it for the beef, you can sell it to your neighbors on the sly~may be some regulations in your area, so be careful, make cheeses and yogurts, feed the skim milk to your other animals, etc. Heck a good milk cow can provide enough milk for 2 calves and still provide enough for a single family's needs. Make some money on the excess milk!

 

[prairiegirl]

I'm making the last of the cream into butter tomorrow. I hope we have enough in the freezer to last until one of the cows freshens.

Tankshill, some of the smaller cows don't give all that milk. There's butter and the resulting buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, and a few other cheeses. Pudding and ice cream use up some of the delicious milk, too. I make mozzarella when we have milk, shred it and freeze. It works nice for pizza and baked pasta dishes. I also freeze ricotta cheese to use in pasta dishes. I've heard some say that they freeze milk, but I haven't done that. We don't have the freezer space with all the meat. Come to think of it, I should have tried freezing at least a quart then we'd know how well it freezes.

This year we hope to try adding an orphan calf to a cow to feed along with her calf. Have you done this Beekissed?

I almost forgot, chickens and pigs love any extra milk or milk products. They must smell it, because they come running whenever we take some out for them.

 

[Beekissed]

My granny used to do this...she had an Angus/Holstein cross cow that often had twins and she still had enough milk for Grandma to use. On the years she didn't have twins, Grandma would put a bottle calf on her. Ol' Martha had to be tied and kickers had to be used for about a week until she got used to the new calf, but then she acted like it was her own.

I've always wanted to do this with a Jersey...can you imagine what fat little calves that kind of milk would yield?

 

[PeeperKeeper]

Several months ago we bought a Jersey. We get about one gallon per day and about 1/3 of that allon is cream! I make butter by culturing the cream first. This helps use up the sugar in the whey and keeps it from spoiling. I can leave a butter crock sit out for over a week and it won't spoil. It tastes the same as the regular but the discarded "buttermilk" tastes sooooo much better! Just add some live cultured buttermilk to a jar of cream, keep it at about 90 degrees for 8 hours, then churn. I usually have to wait the next day to shake it up and I put it in the fridge overnite. Boy does it set up stiff! Warm it back up to about 72 degrees. It will form butter chunks in less than 3 minutes of aggitation. Pour off as much buttermilk possible and set in fridge for later use. I use ice cubes to make the butterfat stiffen up making it easier to press out excess whey. Wash several times in cold water washes until water is clear and Wahoo! butter!
I get 2 1/2 lbs butter from 1/2 gallon cream.