OK, folks, my "treatis" on butter. <gggggggggg>
My elder brother was involved in this research about 50 years ago at
the Iowa State University Dairy Industry Department. The most
critical thing in churning butter is the temperature. Try to be as
close to exactly 61 degrees F. as possible. Even five degrees higher
or lower make a big difference! At the right temperature, it takes
from three to five minutes to do the churning. You can churn lots of
ways, including just putting the cream in a jar and shaking it
vigorously, but an electric mixer will do the churning just fine, you
do not need a "churn." Most mixers can churn a quart of cream, or
"kefirized" cream. A quart of cream should yield a pound of butter and
a pint of buttermilk. By the way, this is true for goats milk too.
However, you really need a mechanical "separator" for goats milk, and
with either goat or cow milk, you "separate" it immediately after
milking, WHILE IT IS WARM. The mechanical separators don't work worth
beans if the milk is cold! If you don't know what the mechanical
separators look like, go to Lehmans hardware, www.lehmans.com. They
serve a huge Amish population near Kidron, Ohio, and have just about
everything that does NOT need electricity to run. Anyway, they sell
them and have illustrations to show you what they look like.
Back to butter. You may have to warm, or cool the cream to get it at
61 degrees. As soon as the cream is at 61 degrees, pour it into the
mixer, set the speed to "whip," and have a rubber scraper handy. DO
NOT LEAVE THE KITCHEN! If you do, even to answer the 'phone, the
butter will "come" while you are away, and you will have buttermilk
all over the kitchen! If you have "Kefirized" the cream, the
procedure is the same, at least for churning. I don't know whether you
would "wash" Kefir Butter or not. I have never made it.
First the cream will whip, then it will change color, becoming a
slightly yellowish color. (Goat milk cream is pure white, and goat
butter is also pure white.) Very soon after that it will become
slightly "chunky" and you will see the yellowish whipped cream
beginning to separate into buttermilk and almost solid butter. Stop
the mixer and SCRAPE THE BOWL so all of the cream is off the sides and
is whipping. Slow the speed down to about half, and watch closely.
Within a few moments you will have to reduce the speed to very slow, or
else the rapidly "coming" butter chunks will start to splash buttermilk
all over the kitchen, and you. As soon as splashing becomes
"imminent," shut off the mixer, and get out your wooden butter paddle.
Don't have a wooden butter paddle? You can get one from
www.lehmans.com Yes, you can use a wooden spoon, but the "curvy"
butter paddle Lehmans sells really works very well for the next step,
which is pouring off the buttermilk, and then washing the new churned
butter. Use the paddle or spoon to "bunch" the new butter together
into one big lump, and then hold it against the side of the mixer bowl
as you pour the buttermilk into a suitable container. You can drink it
right away, or refrigerate it to drink later, or refrigerate it until
you use it for baking. :-)
Now you move to the sink, and run cold water into the bowl, holding the
butter so it does not float out. Pour out the first bowl of water, and
add a half bowl to the mixer bowl, and start to mash the butter against
the side of the bowl, "cut" it several times with the edge of the
paddle, scrape it all off the side of the bowl, and mash it together
again. Pour off the milky looking water, and do it over again. You
keep on "working" the fresh butter and pouring off the water until you
get perfectly clear water. You MUST get all of the buttermilk out of
the butter, or it will turn rancid. You will probably find it takes a
lot longer to "wash" the butter than it took to churn it. Sometimes
you have to use slightly lukewarm water for one or more "cut and mash"
steps because if the water is too cold, the butter gets really stiff
and hard to "work." Don't get it too warm, though, or some of the new
butter will actually melt and you don't want that to happen.
When the "wash" water stays clear, you can salt the butter if you wish.
It really does not take very much salt, as the salt you add "melts" in
the butter and spreads through it somewhat. So, when you salt, then
mash and cut and mash again to mix the salt in, you taste before you
add more salt! It is better to have to add some more than to try to
re-wash the butter to get the excess salt out. Which is exactly what
you do if you get it too salty. Re-wash it until it "tastes right"
Personally, I stop adding salt BEFORE it "tastes right," because TO ME,
it gets a little saltier with time. YMMV.
When you are done, "shape" your butter any way you want. You can even
get wooden "butter moulds" that allow you to squoosh the butter into
them and then dump it out, in a nice "decorated" shape. Personally, I
always make some fresh toast for the FRESH butter!!! You will be
surprised to find how much better FRESH butter tastes than butter than
has sat in a refrigerated store case for weeks and weeks!
Oh yes, one important point - ALL utensils that touch the butter should
be WET. Especially the wooden ones. You do NOT have to wash the
wooden spoon or butter paddle with soapy water! Just use very warm
water and repeatedly wipe it dry again with clean paper towels. A very
small amount of butter may "stick in" the surface of the wooden paddle
or spoon, but it is normally a VERY small amount. Too much could
obviously turn rancid with time. Personally, I have been using the
same curvy wooden butter paddle for several years, and it is as fresh
and nice smelling as it was when I first bought it at Lehman's, about
six or seven years ago. Ellen and I made a trip to Kidron just to see
the store. It is over an acre, and is several buildings connected to
each other. It is an adventure, seeing all of the stuff. There are
two doors, and from one there is a green stripe that goes through the
entire store and back to that door. From the other one there is a red
stripe. That keeps you from getting hopelessly lost. :-)
Have fun churning your own butter! Normally, a quart of good whipping
cream costs about twice as much as a pound of butter, sometimes more.
It depends on the local market for whipping cream and butter. Oh,
another point! "Real" buttermilk does not taste ANYTHING like
"Cultured Buttermilk" that you buy at the store. The "real" stuff is
kind of sweet and pleasant tasting. It can be drunk as it is, or you
can add a little salt, or you can use it for baking things. It should
NOT be just thrown away. :-(
Cheers!
Jean
In Iowa
----- Original Message -----
From: pdmurray68
To: Kefir_making@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:17 AM
Subject: [Kefir_making] Re: Kefir butter from kefir itself
Butter is pure fat so you really need cream to make it. I kefir my
cream and then churn it to make butter. Many times the cream is too
thick to strain the grains out so I will add a little fresh milk to
the mix before I kefir it. I know several people that just leave the
cream sitting out on the counter for 24 hours and let it sour
naturally before churning it. The part I haven't figured out is how to
salt the butter. Most of the salt come out in the leftover "water"
after the churning process and trying to add salt to the butter ends
up with a crunchy butter. Anyone have any ideas? I really prefer
salted butter and my husband will not even eat the unsalted kind.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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