melkor

Was yesterday's butter made with cultured cream? The stuff that comes out of the cream when you make butter with uncultured cream is technically buttermilk, but it isn't cultured - it's much closer to whey than cultured buttermilk.

Did you chill the cultured cream? From room temp it's unlikely to separate. edit: what'd you culture the cream with? buttermilk? creme fraiche? packaged culture?

Before ya toss it, you should taste it - if it's delicious you might as well eat it. (I would, though I'd probably try and sucker my wife into tasting it for me first)

Look for red wines from the Dão region of Portugal, they're made with the Touriga grape. I think Touriga is called Touriga Nacional when it's used for port, but I'm not sure - that may be a different grape.

Uh. What's the deal with the fear mongering about 'foreign' wine? You posted this complaint about a domestic producer on the parker board a couple of weeks ago: The reality is that there are bad vendors selling domestic wine as well as imported. There are a handful of domestic producers that sell on futures, most like Phelps do so at a comically small discount from retail. The rest sell through closed mailing lists (Kosta Browne, Harlan, etc). There are examples of good deals to be had buying in advance in California - David Coffarro is one of them. They're out there domestically, but most of the time the only futures worth buying (from a financial standpoint) are red Bordeaux.

Port is frequently cheaper after it's released than it is on futures.

It is, unless you happen to have a really good source for milk fat. I use manufacturing cream from Berkeley Farms, which I can usually get for about $4-$5/half gallon. That's a lot more expensive than typical butter and close to the cost of the fancy-pants brands. But it gives me something to do, I guess. Hobbies can be expensive. ← $5 a half gallon doesn't sound expensive to me. Supermarket butter costs $4-5 a pound where I am; how much do you get from a half gallon? And how is the quality of manufacturing cream? ← Depends on the fat content of the cream. With Straus heavy cream you'd get about a pound and three quarters from half a gallon.

The grinder also works really well for other things, here's a picture from earlier in the week of green garbanzos, onions, and parsley going through the grinder to make falafel...

That's a nice article but there's no way Andante butter is made with uncultured cream, nor does the article mention that the cream you use will have a significant effect on the flavor of the finished butter.

It's not just you - I do the same thing.

It is, unless you happen to have a really good source for milk fat. I use manufacturing cream from Berkeley Farms, which I can usually get for about $4-$5/half gallon. That's a lot more expensive than typical butter and close to the cost of the fancy-pants brands. But it gives me something to do, I guess. Hobbies can be expensive. ← Is the Berkeley farms manufacturing cream ultra-pasteurized? I started making butter because the milkman brings us milk and cream every week and it's easier to make butter, creme fraiche, and buttermilk when we get behind than it is to remember to call and change our order.

They aren't as different as you'd think. Assuming you're using cultured cream and letting the buttermilk thicken anyway. If you're making butter with sweet cream, you'll have something more similar to whey than buttermilk.

Starting with 450 grams of cultured cream I get about 200g of butter and 250g of buttermilk. It all depends what the fat content of the cream you use is.

Start with a pint of cream plus a tablespoon of buttermilk, leave them at 80*F for 24-48 hours (I put mine on top of my espresso machine with a towel under it). Chill in the fridge then whisk (or whip with a mixer) past the point where you get stiff peaks until it breaks apart. Drain the buttermilk and put it back somewhere warm until it thickens up (another 12-24 hrs). Take the butter curds and kneed them until they stop weeping liquid. Rinse with water, kneed again until dry, repeat until the liquid coming off the butter is clear rather than milky - leaving the buttermilk in the butter will apparently cause it to go rancid much faster. Salt the butter and you're done.

I've been doing cultured butter by souring the cream for 24-48 hours before making butter. You can get similarly good results by just churning creme fraiche.

The 3T system works very well in some areas. As I've said before, recently, it's state-mandated models that don't work. They don't work for producers, and they don't work for the public. It's like a stove with one burner, and an oven that only heats to 300 degrees. "You want another burner? What for? How much food can you eat at once?" "You want it hotter? Buy a barbecue." "It works, it's not broke, what's your complaint?" "We're providing you with a good product, which we have personally chosen for you at a state level, and at a price that can't be beat--locally." "It's safer this way. Minors won't get burnt." ← It isn't at all like a stove with one burner - at least in California and numerous other states. Sure there are some states with horrible local regulations, but other states work fine. If issues like this are import enough to the local residents, they'll either work to change the laws or they'll move. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of consumers aren't affected by this issue at all. It's much more like buying a commercial range to install in your apartment: "You want to install a molteni podium in your apartment? " "You need to insulate to commercial code or move somewhere with more lax regulations" "Wouldn't it be easier to just use a regular stove? there are thousands to choose from..."

I'd imagine most bottles of wine purchased at local shops are consumed in less time than it takes to ship a box from out of state. Most consumers won't order wine at all, in state or out. There are entitled, lazy, disrespectful, and unprofessional people in every field - the three-tier system isn't to blame for that.

I pay on average $4/bottle for shipping when I order wine from Chicago, NY, or DC. I'm sure this isn't a popular position to take, but the three tier system works really well for most consumers - sure they don't pay absolute rock bottom prices, but the products they want are available everywhere and at reasonable prices. Yellowtail production alone is likely to be larger than all the premium wine production in the US - the distribution system is set up to serve the majority. The average consumer of yellowtail chard wouldn't know where to order it from, they certainly don't care if it's shipped in a refrigerated container - all they want is the wine they enjoy at a good price, available at every grocery store or local wine shop. It's very rare that I find what I want at a local wine shop at a good price so I order everything online or over the phone then either pick it up or have it shipped. It's not an ideal solution, but it works. The people who seem to be dead-set against the three tier system are wine collectors, small producers, and people that live in states with backwards laws. The states with backwards laws are slowly modernizing, and the unfortunate reality is that the small producers and wine collectors together add up to a very very small percentage of the population.

I do chuck in a single pass also, but I remove all the fat first, grind the meat coarsely, freeze the fat and grind it on fine then mix them together. It also depends on the type of grinder you use - the KitchenAid attachment has an internal blade and with the small disc will turn your meat into something similar to wall paste. Grinders with external blades are less likely to either smear or overheat the meat. Double grinding is ideal for things like koobideh, but for burgers I find I get a better result by working the meat as little as possible. I use a grinder like this one that I got from my grandmother - I'd guess it's about 70 years old and I only have the medium and course cutting dies.

I'm not a fan of the double-grind.

For the most part, buying on futures is limited to Bordeaux. It offers two advantages over traditional channels - you can specify how the wine is bottled (anywhere from 375s to 6liter or larger bottles) and you guarantee access to the wine. Futures can be a good way to pay less for wine, assuming it isn't available on closeout a few years down the road for less... I buy some futures most years, though I see no reason to buy any 06 Bordeaux futures and the 05 prices have already gone through the roof, so I'd suggest you wait at least another year before you decide to jump in.

I use shortribs and a bit of hangar steak for my burgers.

Run some bread through the grinder when you're done and it'll be much easier to clean.

Smaller pieces (1 inch cubes, max) and use pulse to grind it. I much prefer an actual grinder, but the food processor thing works in a pinch. A dull blade would make it much harder... The ones that can't be sharpened are usually serrated, if you've got a cheapo rough grit water stone you can grind the blade smooth and sharpen it. I've had good luck doing that with a few different things.

Bar Crudo is hardly a hole in the wall. I'm not particularly fond of their food, but the space is quite nice and dinner is likely to run $50+/person. Shalimar at Jones and O'Farrell... that's a hole in the wall.