# Butter



## Greylady

Curious, do many of you make butter? What do you use?


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## Qz Sioux

I would love to make butter, but until I have enough milk to put through a separator, and a separator to put said milk through, I can't 

When I made butter in the past from some heavy cream, I just pulled out "Peggy" my trusty fire engine red Kitchenaid mixer. I use the paddle attachment versus the whip. Also gotta make sure you squeeze and drain it.


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## hsmomof4

Yes, we make it and it's awesome! We have a hand crank cream separator and an antique (dazey style) butter churn. Works great and the butter is amazingly good.


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## swgoats

I make butter in my Oster blender. I just skim the head off all my jars when I go to make cheese. (I tend to let milk build up in my fridge.) A jar sealed with no head space will still be good at two weeks and have a nice head on it. You just have to watch not to burn up the motor with the blender. Blend and rest, blend and rest. The thing I hate about butter making is rinsing it. If any of that buttermilk stays in, it goes bad, but rinsing it is so tedious. I think I have sensitive hands. I don't like working in the ice water for butter or trying to stretch the hot mozzarella.


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## Greylady

In rinsing butter do you that till the water runs clear? I haven't got emough yet to make any but may soon!


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## Ozark Lady

Yes, I also make butter, and no separator. I agree with skimming the jars and milk keeping a long time. I skim the milk into a pint jar, that I keep in the freezer. When the jar is half to 3/4 full. I decide to make butter and start a new freezer jar.

I thaw the cream a little bit. Then I put it into a wide mouth quart canning jar. I put one beater into my hand held electric mixer. I then beat it until it turns into whipped cream and keep beating, doesn't take too long if it is still really cold. I keep on beating until it separates. It will just start looking different. A little more beating, and I start putting ice water into the quart jar while beating. After a while, I have butter in the jar and a bit of milky liquid. 

I keep the water really, really cold, sometimes even adding ice to water before using it in the jar.
Once I decide it is done, I take it out of the jar and put into a bowl, and start really rinsing and pouring off the ice cold water, until I have no more milky fluid. If I leave any milky fluid it turns rancid quickly. Then I add regular table salt, not a lot and mix and taste until I am satisfied, should I get too much salt, I just rinse it in ice cold water again, and the salt will wash back out. Until I get all of that milky water out it tastes like... rich milk. But once the water is gone and the salt is in it, it tastes like regular butter, just it is white.


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## Dee Kennerly

*Making butter*

I have a small herd of Mini-Mancha dairy goats. I usually place the milk in large gallon jars and in 4-5 days the cream has risen and reaches down to the shoulder of the jar, 2 1/2 to 3 inches. I take a ladle that fits easily in the wide mouth of the jar, lowering it slowly, slightly tilted, and the cream streams over the edge. I keep doing this until I can see the color change to white milk. Cream from a couple of gallons of milk is enough to use in the small 1 gallon 1950's Sears electric churn that I got second hand in an antique store. From this churning I will get a pound+ of butter. I also have another old churn, hand crank, that holds more cream, but it takes a little longer to make, and more arm power. After I put the cream in the churn, I will let it set on the counter to slightly age, say from evening till next morning, or one morning to the next. It doesn't sour like cow's milk, so all the butter tastes like sweet cream butter rather than the sour cream butter I used to make with cow's milk, years ago. After lifting the butter out of the churn, wash with cold water, sometimes adding ice to the water to keep the butter as cold as possible to help force the milk out. More watery milk surfaces when you start adding salt.

The washing is the part I dislike most. It takes longer for me than the churning, since a "little" OCD sets in and I keep thinking the water isn't clear enough. Then I began to think about the reason for making sure it is clear. In times past there were no cold refrigerators or freezers to keep the butter stored in. Any milk left in the butter would cause it to go rancid sooner. After all, after churning, the butter is edible and the buttermilk is also edible, so it is only the storage issue that caused us to get it as clear as possible.

Of course in this family, storage is not much of an issue since it is eaten faster than I can make it!
Being able to make butter is another of the many reasons I love my Mini-Manchas. I have raised LaManchas before, and loved the breed. But as most other breeds, butter making was difficult to do in any reasonable amount for a family without a separator. Now I can make as much as I care to, and since I am not mechanically separating the cream, there is plenty left in the milk to make great cheese. Now I feel like I have a true small homesteader's animal to provide meat, milk, butter and cheese in limited space and on less feed to provide.


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## swgoats

It is a good secure feeling, isn't it? - to have dairy and eggs.


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## Laverne

I let the milk set for 4-7 days then line them all up along my kitchen sink, put my siphon hose in the first jar, suck on hose slightly to get it going, drain skim milk into jar below in the sink, when cream line is near bottom, plug end with thumb, quickly go to next jar. i can do about 3 gallons in 6 minutes. I then pasturize the skim for my parents who like low fat milk. I put the cream in the vita mix till butter forms and then wash the butter. I ususally like to make clarified butter.
This is so much easier than using the cream separator even if I had 10 gallons of milk to do. I think my two cream separators are officially retired.


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## MysticHollowGoats

Just this morning I made some following MaryAnn's method but I used an immersion blender and I had butter in less than 2 minutes!


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## swgoats

That's very smart Laverne! I'm going to have to try that with the mixer in the ball jar method.


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## todog

there is an article in Countryside mag. this month on canning butter. now wouldnt that be nice, goats milk butter canned. hmmmm, 5 dairy girls due to freshen, lots of extra milk, maybe i will try canning my butter this time.


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## terri9630

If you put the butter in a mason jar while it is still in little clumps and shake with cold water its much easier to rinse. Change the water out a until it stays clear. No freezing hands!


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## [email protected]

terri9630 said:


> If you put the butter in a mason while it is still in little clumps and shake with cold water its much easier to rinse. Change the water out a until it stays clear. No freezing hands!


I use my food processor. I wonder if this *rinsing in the jar* would work in my food processor. Pour out the buttermilk, add cold water, whiz, repeat. ? I'm gonna try it the next time I make butter. I hate frozen hands too.


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## hmcintosh

I have to say I'm still alittle lost. I didn't think there was enough cream in a gallon of milk to make butter but everyone has me wanting to make some. So where do I start? I have a food processor
and a mixer so which one could I use. Someone tell me real simply what to do and I will have to try!


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## todog

pour i qt. of milk in an open container like a baking dish or meat loaf dish (glass only) put in fridge and let set. you can cover with wax paper. after you see the separation between the milk and the creme then you carefully skim the creme off the top and put in your blender and turn it on. when you see some separation stop and pour off the liquid part and add cold water. just about twice what you poured off. blend again, keep doing this till its butter. or use the jar method with is more physical but kids enjoy helping.


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## terri9630

hmcintosh said:


> I have to say I'm still alittle lost. I didn't think there was enough cream in a gallon of milk to make butter but everyone has me wanting to make some. So where do I start? I have a food processor
> and a mixer so which one could I use. Someone tell me real simply what to do and I will have to try!


I bought a hand crank cream seperator off e-bay for $80. I get about a pint of cream from a gallon of milk from my LaManchas. We make butter, cheese and just had some ice cream courtesy of our girls.


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## terri9630

[email protected] said:


> I use my food processor. I wonder if this *rinsing in the jar* would work in my food processor. Pour out the buttermilk, add cold water, whiz, repeat. ? I'm gonna try it the next time I make butter. I hate frozen hands too.


I don't see why not. I'd try.


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## [email protected]ojo

I just put my milk into gallon jugs in the fridge for a couple days. Then when I get it out to use for *whatever*, there's usually an inch or two of thick cream on the top. I skim that off with a large tablespooon and put in a pint jar and pop it in the freezer. Repeat til pint jar is full. Then I get it out and let it thaw and make butter with it. 
I've heard alot of people say it works better with cold cream, but it seems to work better for me at about room temp. ? I've also tried using a qt of cream, but it's a bit too much for my processor. Makes a mess. :/ LOL


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## modeuk

Just made my first batch of butter! Reasonably happy with the process and the outcome. It's in the fridge now as I want to see if it firms up a bit more. When you said messy I didn't know you meant MESSY!
190grams from 650ml cream.


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## RKAcresGoats

I've never tried goat's milk (never enough milk) but we get raw cows milk and are always making butter. Not sure if this would work with goat milk but I just but the cream in a mason jar and shake it. It takes about 45 minutes and most of the cream turns to butter, not alot of buttermilk left over. I don't know if this helps, but...


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