How to Make Butter by Churn, Beater or Jar with Recipes (2024)

As longas your creamhas a high fat content, and is 2-3 days old, you should have no problemat all making delicious butter without any additives or preservatives.We also tell you how to make clarified butter.

In days gone by, butter making was donein every household, as well as cheesemaking. However, people tend to be too busy withfamilies and careers these days, and the art is not widely practiced.However, I like homemade butter because at least I know what went intoit.

I can also use the buttermilk for making cheese, feeding my chickens,or adding to mybread dough and muffin mixture as it make them that much lighter!

As already mentionedyour cream has to be well ripened in order to make good butter. Howmany days this will take will depend on the weather.

During the summeryou can pour the cream out into a deep pan during the early evening andmake your butter the following morning.

However, during the winter, you will have to ripen your cream near onopen fire, turning the pan occasionally to make sure that heat reachesthe cream evenly, and this is done over 2 -3 days.

Donot cover the cream. You need to expose it to the air, as the air willproduce the lactic acid bacteria for the ripening that you are after.Even stirring it from time to time will help in letting the air intothe cream.

What you are wanting at that end of this is for the cream to clabber.This means that when you tilt the pan the whole lot leaves the sidescleanly and the liquid holds together and moves as one mass. This showsyou that the cream has clabbered. It will also have started to sour.

Cream, when ready for churning, has a smooth, velvety appearance and apleasant acid flavour.

However, you don't want it to go rotten. This is when the ripeningprocess in your butter making has gone on for too long and has spoiled.You will know when this has happened because the cream will curdle andseparate. If you make butter from curdled milk it will not make goodbutter.

So, now, at this point, perhaps you want to get a little morescientific about your homemade butter.

Thebest results in cream ripening are obtained at a temperature of from 58to 68 Fahrenheit, although the lactic acid bacteria increase inactivity up to a temperature of 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. If thecream is ripened at a temperature higher than 75 degrees Fahrenheit youwill not end up with good butter. Your butter will end up being toosoft.

It is not safe to ripen creambelow60 F. Cream quickly ripenedand then held at a temperature of 45 F. for 24hours will clabber correctly, won't rot or make your butter bitter.However, if you hold the cream at say, 45 F. for 24 hoursand then ripen your cream the butter will develop a bitter flavor.

How to MakeButter the Traditional Way with a Churn and Dasher

Traditionally butter was made using a butter churn and a dasher. It waseither a wooden butter burn that stood upright,or a stonepottery cylindrical vessel that narrowed at the topthat was big enough to place the dasher into. Later on there werebutter churns that were barrel shaped and came with a handle, glassbutter churns fitter with an egg-beater like contraption, and laterelectic-driven butter churns. I prefer a stone pottery butter churn asthey are easier to keep clean and free of bacteria.

A dasher is a wooden butter churning tool that could be made in twoways. It was a long-handled pole with 2 slats attached to the base ofthe pole each placed in the opposite direction to the other so that youend up with a cross. Each wooden slat was about 4 inches long, 2 incheswide and 1/2 inch thick.

Another way of making a dasher was to make a circular base, 4inches in diameter and 1 inch thick. Drilled out of this circular basewere 4 holes, 1inch in diameter, and equidistant from each other.

Make sure your churn and dasher is abolutely clean before youstart making your homemade butter. This is very important as your creamwill be full of bacteria which will spoil your butter. Scald the butterchurn with boiling water, and follow with a thorough rinsing of coldwater.

Creamshould be cooled down to the churning temperature for several hoursbefore churning, as this gives a much firmer butter than if it ismerely cooled down just before churning.

Generally speaking, the normal churning temperatureis 55 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit, but the temperature may vary from 50 to62 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you churn when the cream is too high a temperatureit will produce butter in a very short time, but with a loss of fat inthe buttermilk.

If you churn when the cream istoo low a temperatureyou will be churning for a very long time and the butter produced willbe hard and difficult to work with.

In summer a churning temperature of from54 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit is wanted and in winterfrom 58 to 62 degreesFahrenheit will give good results undernormal conditions.

Largequantities of cream require a lower churning temperature, from 48degrees Fahrenheit in summer and up to 56 degrees Fahrenheit in winter.

Place the dasher into the churn andpour in the clabbered cream through a strainer to remove any grass etc.that may be in your cream.

Fill the churn until it is 1/3rd full. Never more. At this stage youcould add annatta to color your butter, but I never bother. If yourcows are grass fed, your butter will have some color to it anyway, butif they are hay-fed the butter will be more white in color. The colorshouldn't worry you, as having no additional color does not affect thetaste at all.

Close up the churn with the tight fittingwooden lid that has a hole for the dasher but will prevent the creamfrom splashing everywhere.

For the next 30-40 minutes agitate the cream by moving the dasher upand down continually until your cream starts turning to butter.You don't want to churn too quickly as this will make thecreamhang around the churn and not gather into the fat globules you need.Too slowly, and you have issues again.

Themore quickly you churn your cream, the paler, and softer your butterwill be and less rich than if you churn more slowly. When it is summeryou will need to churn slower so that you don't end up with soft, whitebutter. In the winter you need to churn more quickly to keep thetemperature up.

Don't over-churn yourbutter. If you do, you will end up losing that lovelyyellow color and again your butter will be pale.

CountryfarmLifestyles Tip for How to Make Butter:For the first 5 minutes of churning,open up the vent from time to time. There will be somegas build-up in your churn, and by allowing theses gasses to escape. Ifyou don't your cream becomes frothy and then difficult to churn.

Temperature will have a lot to do with how your butter will turn out.If the temperature is too hot your butter will be quite white andfluffy looking. You can add a small amount of cold water at this stageto see if you can improve the texture.

If the temperature is too cold your butter will find that your butterhas not really gathered together properly with a lot of smallerglobules of fat that has separated out. You can add a small amount ofhot water will help draw the globules together.

Once the butter fat globules have all clumped together in small,pea-size pieces stop churning and remove it from thechurn. If you carry on churning it makes it more difficult to separatethe buttermilk and to distribute the salt evenly. You can place coldwater into the churn to float the butter pieces and remove with astrainer.

Thiswater is from 3 to 10 degrees lower than the churning temperature. Forexample, insummer, say 42 to 45 degrees F., or as cold aspossible, and in winter 3 to 4 degrees below the temperature at whichchurning has been done.

The reason for adding water at thisstage is to reduce the temperature, which rises during churning, and toharden the grains of butter so that their size may be increased withoutthe risk of churning the butter into lumps. The addition of the wateralso assists in getting rid of any caseous matter.

It isdifficult to say just how much water you will need to add at this stagebecause it depends on how much cream is in the churn, what thetemperature is etc. However, I suggest you put in just small amounts ofwater rather than the full amount so that you can judge the conditionsaccordingly.

Howmuch Butter will I get from 1 Gallon of Cream? About 3pounds.

At this stage there are 2 thoughts on what to do next.

How to Make Butter - Washing the Butter

Some people will place the butter straight into the fridge for a day torest without rinsing it, and before salting it and working it. Otherswill rinse the butter in cold water and then salt and work it straightaway.

It really is up to you, and personal taste. What is not up fordispute, is that the liquid left behind is homemadebuttermilk which can be poured and stored in your fridge fordrinking and for baking. Your pigs and chickens will also love your forit!

When salting the butter use 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon for each pint ofbutter.

If you are not going to place your homemade butter in the fridge firstthen you can rinse your butter using iced water. Place a handful of icecubes in a bowl that now holds the warm butter. Stir the ice cubesthrough the butter until it melts.
Now taking your clean hands, and start workingthe butter, You need to squeezethe water through the butter several times.

The coldness of the iceallows for the butter to handle better and is easier if you are goingto place it in molds. You can also wash it several times, ifyou like. However, never wash the butter as shown in thepicture left.

You should only add as much water to the butter as the amount of creamadded at the beginning. Too much washing will result in washing awaythe delicate flavor of the butter.

CountryfarmLifestyles Tip for How to Make Butter: The type ofwater you use for washingisimportant. Any water that is not pure will result in imparting thattaste of that water to the butter. Use pure spring water only.

Usually, one washing is more than enough.

Squeeze out the excess water and place in your molds. Traditionally,wooden butter molds were used that had lovely patterns carved into thewood.

Once you have learned tomake butterwith our basic homemade butter recipe, you can experiment with herbs:

• Cut up chives, and add them at the end.
• A classic herb butteris adding small quantities of fresh tarragon, parsley and thyme with adash of black pepper.
• For a slightly differentflavor, and if your cream is too fresh, youcan add 2 tablespoons of either crême fraiche, yogurt,or sour cream to your cream before you start to beat.

Warmmilk straight from the cow is strained into shallow pans 6 to 8 in.deep and allowed to stand undisturbed for 12 or 24 hours, the length oftime
varying with the time of year. (If the weather is too hot you will notbe able to do this.)

Thepans are now removed to a stove and the milk heated very gradually to atemperature of 170 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit. This should be done veryslowly, or the proper flavour is not obtained. 20 to 30 minutes istheminimum time which should be taken.

The pans are thenremoved to the dairy and allowed to cool, and in summer they are oftenplaced in cold water. The cream is skimmed off after about 12 hours,using a perforated skimmer. Clotted cream may be churned, but in thiscase the scald is not so high, 170 Fahrenheit being the maximum.

Theold-fashioned method of churning clotted cream was to place it in a tuband stir or beat with the hand till butter is produced. Butter madefrom clotted cream requires thorough washing to remove the butter-milkor the keeping properties will be poor.

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