Making Fresh Butter at Home

Making homemade butter without a churn is easy. With a little time and effort, you can have freshly made butter that tastes much better than the store bought varieties. Unlike the store bought butter, we find that homemade butter has a creamier flavor. You are also able to control the amount of salt used in the butter. The following is the process that I use to make butter.

The first step is gathering the cream. We purchase raw cow milk from a local farmer. The milk we get is very rich in cream. We store the milk in gallon sized plastic jars that we get from a local deli. The jars have a wide opening which makes it easier to gather the cream. Often when the cream has risen to the top and is gathered, I will have a full quart of cream from a single gallon of milk.

I gather the cream and put it into another gallon sized jar to be stored in the refrigerator until I have gathered enough to make butter. When the jar is half full of cream, I set the cream out on the counter in the morning to let it warm up a bit and "ripen" a little.

In the afternoon, I take the jar of cream and start shaking it vigorously. At first, you will feel as though nothing is happening, but be patient. The process can take anywhere from 15-45 minutes depending on the temperature of your cream and how hard you shake the jar. When you shake the jar, you want it to be hard enough to make the cream hit the sides or ends (top & bottom) of the jar. The action of the cream hitting the sides helps to separate the butter from the cream.

After about 15 minutes, start checking the cream. You are looking for little curds of butter. When you see these appear, you will need to continue shaking the jar more gently to allow the butter to form a single large mass. If you were to continue shaking too hard, the butter would likely remain in the small curds.

When the butter has formed a large mass, it is time to drain off the buttermilk. I carefully pour off the buttermilk into another container. This buttermilk is not the cultured type found in stores, but is the more pure form of buttermilk. I save this for using in biscuits, pancake batter and other recipes.

Place the butter into a bowl and with a spatula, gently start pressing the butter to release any water left in the butter. As the water is released, drain it out. If the butter becomes to soft while doing this step, I will chill it by adding some ice cold water. Continue working the water out of the butter until the water is clear and the last of it has been drained. This step is important as it helps in preventing the butter from spoiling too quickly.

If you are wanting salted butter, you will add a very small amount to it now. I would suggest using a light hand in adding the salt. It is always easier to add more, yet impossible to remove the extra if you add too much.

If you are planning to use the butter for baking, you may want to take the extra step of measuring the butter into 1/2 cup quantities. This is equal to 1 stick of butter. Refrigerate the butter to firm it up. Once made, butter can also be frozen for longer term storage.