Firstly let me say that I will take no responsibility for overweight people due to the excess "finger licking" that might go on.
OK, I had been told that buttermaking was easy. It took me about three months to actually get my first "taste." I nearly had a party. I had tried using hand mixers, shaking in bottles, etc etc, but eventually devised the way I will describe here. (it really IS easy)
Now, if you have access to fresh milk, pasteurised or not, you might have a separator to separate the cream from the milk.
I will explain the way I did it before investing in a separator though. You will also need animals to feed the skim milk to as well as the butterfat after making your butter because there will be a lot of this left over. (depending on the butterfat content of the milk you are using of course).
BUT, I have made low fat ice cream, low fat yoghurt as well as low fat cheese and cottage cheese from the skim milk. You can always drink it yourself as well but I find that if you are used to full cream milk then skim milk just tastes like "white water."
The OTHER way of separating your cream from the milk
Now, if you let the milk stand you will notice that before too long the cream rises to the surface. If you keep it in the fridge overnight this system works a lot better.
OK, leave your milk in a container, preferably see through, so you can see how much cream there is.
Then, get a CLEAN pipe, not too thick otherwise you could suck up cream.
Put the pipe through the cream, to the bottom of the bucket and siphon off the skim milk until you reach the cream.
And whoopie. You have your cream. I used this system for over a year successfully, so do know that it works.
NOW, WHAT Utensils.
1 A blender.
2 Preferably two containers for working the butter although one will do.
3 A strong spatula
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| Utensils you will need (the ginger ale is optional) |
5 Salt
6 Muscle power
7 A container in which to decant your butterfat.
8 The containers in which you have your cream.
1 Pour some cream into the blender. Just a little to start with until you are experienced as to how much water to add to help the butter to separate.
2 Have clean,cold water ready to add to the mixture.
3 Switch on the blender, making sure the lid is on.
4 Depending on the temerature you are working at, the cream should start thickening within minutes. Now, here is a hint. If the room temperature is too low the butter will be hard to work and if too high then it will be very thin and has a hard time separating. I have found that if it is warm enough that I am comfortable wearing a shirt then the temperature is fine. If I want to remove my shirt then it is too warm and if I am needing to put on more clothing then the butter will be harder to work.
5 Now I have found it beneficial to leave the cream in the fridge overnight to thicken. (it seems to separate quicker in the blender)
6 As soon as the cream gets too thick in the blender add as much water as you can to the mixture without making a mess. I let the blender stay running and add the water through the little hole in the lid.
7 Carry on blending untill the butter has separated from the butterfat. (which with this method is now mostly water.)
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| Butter has separated |
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| Butterfat has been poured off |
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| Working the butter in bowl number one |
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| Bowls number one and two |
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| Ready for salting |
12 Now, you are ready to salt your butter. (you will have to experiment with the amount of salt you use because it will depend on the individuals taste.)
A plus factor using this method is that you dont really need to "wash" your butter afterwards.
Now this is real "farm" butter and I call it "Squirty" butter because you never really get ALL of the water out. It seems to come out when you start to use it, especially if the butter has softened. Just pour off this water as it rises. Now and then you will be "Squirted" with water when using a knife, hence the name.
I have stored butter in the freezer for 3 months without any problems and that is when using un pasteurised milk, straight from the cow to the bottle.
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| Preferrably use glass containers for storing your butter in |
One thing I notice with the butter I make is how yellow it is as compared to that which you buy......
And there you have it. Your first butter.
Only one thing left to do now.
WASH THE DISHES.
METHOD 2
I am using the "blender" attachment for my Kennywood, after having tried the cutting blade (which also works by the way).
With this method you can put a lot more cream into the container if you are very careful about which speed you use on the machine. I use the slowest until the butter turns and then speed it up when washing it.
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| Cream added |
Method
The method is very similar to the one I use above, with just a few things to watch out for.
1 Set up your equipment and prepare your water to wash the butter with (I use purified water for that.)
2 Put in approx 1/3rd of the container full with cream.
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| Starting the process |
4 It will sometimes take a bit longer with this attachment so just be patient.
5 When you see the curds starting to seperate then keep a watchful eye because things start to move quickly.
6 As soon as the curds have seperated, remove the container and pour off the butterfat.
7 Replace the attachment and add some wash water.
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| Curds starting to seperate |
8 Pour off the wash water and remove the butter.
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| After decanting washing water |
PS I have discovered that this method works great if you leave the cream in the fridge for a day or two to thicken. I now use this method in preference to the blender method I first used. You can make up to 500g and more at a time this way.
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| Completed butter |
Things be be watchful for
1 Try not to leave the curds for too long when they have turned because they might blend together and form a "slab" of butter. This puts the machine waaay out of balance and might damage it if you are not careful.
2 The first time I tried this method was during winter. The cold makes the butter extremely hard to work, especially when it comes to salting it.
However I have made butter this way a couple of times now and have found that if it is warm enough that you do not need to put a jersey on then it is OK. Any colder and I recommend using the method above.
Advantages
The main advantage is that you can put more than twice the amount of cream into this attachment and once you are familiar with this method you might use it in preference to the first one.
