I made butter!

I was a bit scared of butter, after raw milk yoghurt was so much harder than I expected.  But we were lucky to have a demonstration at the Marburg Show recently.  A couple of elderly gentlemen who used to work at the Beaudesert butter factory had a bucket of fresh milk and were showing people how to separate the cream and make butter.  We spent about half an hour asking many many questions, they were very kind and helpful, so I felt confident that we knew what do to (so much better to see a demo than read a book!).

This is the mess I made.

First I tried the cream (at room temperature, a few days old, not fresh) in the food processor, but it was too fast and sharp and cut the butter to pieces.  So the cream went back into the jar and I shook it a few times and there was butter!  I poured off the butter milk, poured in fresh chilled water, rinsed a few times and then worked a little salt into the butter (to keep it longer) with a paddle.  It was so easy, what a relief, and it tasted lovely!  You only get a little bit at a time, but it doesn't last long anyway, so I don't mind shaking up a jar of cream every few days to make us some butter (a different story if I want to bake a cake though, I might need to plan ahead in that case!).

And this is the butter!

The next time, I didn't use the food processor at all and just shook the cream in a jar, it takes about 10 minutes of shaking, and best if the jar is about half full.  Then you just continue as above, to wash the butter in chilled water (cold from the tap here in summer will melt the butter!).  Its also important to add salt, as this helps the butter to last longer.

Now if you're still wondering how to actually make butter (instead of just excited to see that I made butter), please check out this link, which shows the process step by step.

Do you make butter?  Any tips?


You might also be interested in my series on getting started with homestead dairy