Should You Can Butter?

On the internet, you can find recipes for almost anything. Canning recipes and instructions are particularly popular as more cooks delve into this age-old art. Many instructions for canning butter can be found on the web but should you try it at home? Or is canning butter one of those risks you don't want to take for your family?

Home canning has become popular once again and people are canning everything from jams to chili to spaghetti sauce. Once, canning was the only way for a family to eat throughout the cold of the winter. It was the only source of produce until the crops began to grow in the spring time. Canning declined in popularity as commercially-canned goods became available and affordable in stores across the continent. Today, many families are rediscovering the joys of a vegetable garden and the satisfaction of preserving fresh healthy foods.

Canning instructions have changed substantially over the past hundred years as food science recognizes some of the potential dangers of home-canned food. Most vegetables and all meats must be canned under pressure to protect these low-acid foods from salmonella or botulism poisoning. Even tomatoes, which have been water-bath canned for a century or more, must be canned in a pressure canner as tomatoes are less than half as acidic today as they were back then. Butter has no acid base and nothing else to preserve it naturally. This makes it an open invitation for bacteria to grow and thrive.

Most internet butter canning instructions call for the melting of the butter and pouring into hot jars. The butter is then refrigerated and shaken occasionally as it re-hardens to avoid the separation of the oils from the milk solids. Some instructions call for boiling the filled and sealed jars in a hot water bath for ten to fifteen minutes.

Neither of these methods protects the butter from botulism. Botulism spores are heat-resistant and require 140 degree Fahrenheit temperatures for at least a half hour to begin to kill the spores. This amount of processing would permanently damage the quality of the butter and therefore would not be worth saving. Any less processing and the butter is at risk of being infected. The biggest danger of botulism is that it is odorless and often cannot be detected at all when eating contaminated foods. Proper heat processing is the only way to ensure that canned food is safe.

Fortunately, for those who want to have butter stored for emergencies, there are two great options. Red Feather makes a commercially-canned butter with no preservatives that is safe and very tasty. Many companies also make a butter powder with which you can cook to obtain a rich buttery flavor. Leave the canning of butter to professionals and keep your family safe.

Source:

National Center for Home Food Preservation