Making Butter!

[blue_dolphin]

Thanks for posting this, @Okanagancook, making cultured butter has been on my list of things to try from the Artisan Cheesemaking at Home cookbook.  I made whole milk ricotta and crème fraîche and then stalled out!

 

The sources they give for the starter culture (they call for Aroma B powdered mesophilic starter culture for butter) are:

The Beverage People in northern California

Dairy Connection in Madison, WI - http://www.getculture.com is their "consumer/hobby" retail site

Glengarry Cheesemaking and Dairy Supply in Lancaster, Ontario in Canada

 

I need to get an order together and start trying some of this stuff - thanks for the nudge!

 

[Tere]

Went out to eat at Fishmore Hall http://www.fishmorehall.co.uk/ last night. Very good meal, and their butter was to die for! Meant to ask who the supplier was, then forgot. Ah well. We'll be back.

[Okanagancook]

We were talking about butter tonight at our Friday Pub Night visit.  You pay around $6.00 for a pound of premium high quality Canadian produced butter.  It is tasteless compared to my cultured butter.  $10 versus $6 .  Hum I think I will be making more.  Sure not for baking but I will switch to cheaper Canadian butter for that.

[Okanagancook]

Made another 2 litre batch but this time we incubated the cream for 18 hours rather than 12.  It was made with different cream and my sous vide rig stayed at 78 rather than 75F for the incubation.  We tasted this batch against my first batch and no real difference for the extra time in the bath.  

Delicious.

[Kerry Beal]

Couldn't be left behind - 

 

 

Picked up some culture from Glengarry Cheesemaking Supplies - had a carton of organic cream in freezer - augmented with some of the UHT cream I had in the fridge - 24º C for 12 hours or so.

 

 

Beat the crap out of it in the thermomix. Followed Andi's directions from her blog.

 

 

Rescued the buttermilk - note to self - make something with it today.

 

 

After 4th ice water wash.

 

 

Worked with wooden paddles I got from Glengarry - found my wooden board after I was done - so used a combination of working on parchment and mopping up the exuded water with paper towel. 

 

 

Worked in some Fleur de Sel

 

 

Got 3 containers this size from about 750 ml of cream.

 

 

[Toliver]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

...Got 3 containers this size from about 750 ml of cream.

And how does it taste? Worth the effort?

[Kerry Beal]

12 minutes ago, Toliver said:

And how does it taste? Worth the effort?

Seems tasty so far - think I'll go for more cultured next time though. That's not coming through as strongly as I'd like.

 

[andiesenji]

On 9/19/2016 at 9:39 AM, Kerry Beal said:

Seems tasty so far - think I'll go for more cultured next time though. That's not coming through as strongly as I'd like.

 

I mixed some kefir in with a quart of heavy cream and left to to culture at room temp overnight.

I then chilled it for an hour before putting it in the Thermomix and "churning" it for 4 minutes.  I think I could have stopped at 3 minutes because it was really "thumping" - was a single mass when I opened the top. 

 

After rinsing and working it, I tasted it prior to adding the salt.  It has a flavor very similar to the Isigny  unsalted, a faint "cheesy" flavor that I am very partial to and after adding the salt, even more of the flavor comes out.  I had baked a rustic boule and have to confess that I had more than was good for me but it was just so tasty.

Edited December 13, 2017 by andiesenji (log)

[Okanagancook]

3 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Seems tasty so far - think I'll go for more cultured next time though. That's not coming through as strongly as I'd like.

 

Definitely a work in progress.  Nice job.

[kitwilliams]

I started making my own butter/buttermilk about two years ago.  I'm hooked, not only on the fresh butter, buttermilk and creme fraiche I get out of the process, but the process itself.  I love making butter.  From making the creme fraiche to churning (I have an old 1940s glass churn which is fun, but mostly use the KitchenAid), to washing, squeezing in butter muslin, kneading in the salt until creamy and develops beautiful waves of golden goodness.  But here in Southern California, I have exhausted my resources, which aren't a lot in the way of fresh, local dairy. I usually use Clover or Humboldt cream (everything else is tasteless and/or ultra-pasteurized). But I want to find someone with a Jersey cow(s), from whom I can purchase cream.  There MUST be people outside of LA/Orange/Riverside counties who have a cow or two.  I just have no clue as to how to find them! 

 

Do any of you have any ideas?

 

And, one thing:  I just started using Icelandic Skyr as culture for my cream.  It was wonderful! 

 

 

[Eric Srikandan]

I had a go - cultured 900ml of cream overnight, then used the Kenwood mixer with k paddle. Must have taken less than a minute. Got 440g of butter after washing and squeezing. Added 5% Maldon sea salt at the end.

[Anna N]

43 minutes ago, Eric Srikandan said:

Added 5% Maldon sea salt at the end.

Wow. That sounds like a lot of salt.  I think commercial salted butter contains around 1.5 to 1.8 percent.  But I could be wrong. 

[andiesenji]

24 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Wow. That sounds like a lot of salt.  I think commercial salted butter contains around 1.5 to 1.8 percent.  But I could be wrong. 

Sounds like a lot to me also.  I use the Guerande "velvet" salt and at most, 2/3 of a teaspoon.  It depends on the culture, some taste more salty than others without the addition of any salt.  

[Eric Srikandan]

58 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Wow. That sounds like a lot of salt.  I think commercial salted butter contains around 1.5 to 1.8 percent.  But I could be wrong. 

Oops! I guess we'll see when I try it with some bread.

[Okanagancook]

If it’s too salty make another batch and combine them or use it for cooking.  I will try adding more culture powder to my cream next time I make butter to try to get a more ‘cultured taste’.

[Anna N]

Just now, Okanagancook said:

If it’s too salty make another batch and combine them or use it for cooking.  I will try adding more culture powder to my cream next time I make butter to try to get a more ‘cultured taste’.

Or make some Tuscan bread. 

[nickrey]

12 hours ago, Anna N said:

Wow. That sounds like a lot of salt.  I think commercial salted butter contains around 1.5 to 1.8 percent.  But I could be wrong. 

I use Maldon sea salt and the big crystals amplify the salt taste by the diner occasionally biting into one.

 

I use about 0.8% salt using the crystals and haven't ever had any complaints about it being under-salted.

[Eric Srikandan]

Actually wasn't too bad - tried it simply with toasted french lean bread and the saltiness worked out fine.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

11 hours ago, Eric Srikandan said:

Actually wasn't too bad - tried it simply with toasted french lean bread and the saltiness worked out fine.

 

Wow.  I find the MB French lean bread recipe as written a bit too salty for my taste even by itself.*  Thirteen grams per kg.  And I happily ingest salt out of hand, as I'm doing at the moment.  With their French lean bread I go for unsalted butter and finishing salt as needed.

 

 

*That or my scale is broken.

 

[Anna N]

5 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

*That or my scale is broken

 Might be worth checking your scale. I don’t find that amount of salt out of line by any means. But we all have our own idea of how much salt we enjoy so perhaps this is more than you are accustomed to. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

8 hours ago, Anna N said:

 Might be worth checking your scale. I don’t find that amount of salt out of line by any means. But we all have our own idea of how much salt we enjoy so perhaps this is more than you are accustomed to. 

 

While I was worried about the scale, I checked it with a weight.  The scale seems OK and the weight and volume measures of salt seem to match, but let's not burden the butter topic.  I'll leave it that I prefer my butter unsalted.