Canning Butter Recipe-Safe??

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Ok, all you canners! I saw a recipe on another canning site for canning butter. Basically it involved melting the butter, simmering for 5 minutes, pouring into sterilized jars, covering with lids and letting it seal itself as it cooled. Supposedly lasts three years canned this way. My question is wouldn't it be like canning milk, and need to be pressure canned? It would be a low acid food, so USDA recommended methods aside, what are your thoughts/experiences on the safety of doing this? Jan

-- Jan Bullock (Janice12@aol.com), April 19, 2000

Answers

I've never canned butter, but I have milk. You don't have to pressure can milk, waterbath for an hour at a gentle boil.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony@yahoo.com), April 19, 2000.

I did the butter that way myself last year although I turned the jars upside down for the first 5 minutes like you do jam. I also heated the jars and lids before I poured in the melted butter. Seems to work just fine. I did them in jelly jars but wish I would have gone a little bigger. I don't know where I got that recipe from but at the time was confident with it being safe. Don't see a problem!

-- Pat (pmikul@pcpros.net), April 19, 2000.

Howdy Jan,

Here is the butter canning procedure that I use and it's the one I include in my book (where the below text is from). You won't find any USDA approved butter canning methods because there aren't any. The USDA does not approve canning any dairy products. Nevertheless, butter at least can be safely canned if you're attentive and careful.

Canned Butter:

It must be made clear that the procedure for canning butter discussed below is not approved by the USDA or any state cooperative extension service that I know of. There are no USDA approved methods for canning dairy products that I've been able to find. Nevertheless, it has been used by many people and there have been no problems reported, IF you correctly follow the directions. I've used it myself, but you do so at your own risk.

If you have an Asian market or a health food store you may find a product called "ghee" which is basically clarified butter. It's been in use in India for centuries. You can make your own ghee if you like.

To make it you must start with unsalted sweet cream butter. It's important to not use the salted kind because the finished product will be excessively salty if you do. It takes roughly three and a half sticks of ordinary unsalted butter to fill a pint jar after clarifying and a bit more than one and a half sticks for a half-pint jar. Without refrigeration, I recommend processing your butter in the half-pints to have less exposed to the air at one time. Since you're melting it, you obviously would not want to use whipped butter as it will just about melt away to nothing. Nor do I recommend the near or almost butter products to be found. This procedure can be used with unsalted, solid (not whipped) margarine, but you should add about 10-20% more to achieve equivalent finished volume. Naturally, reduced fat "spreads" will not work well here either.

Place the butter in a heavy bottomed pan over low heat and melt it. Continue heating it until all of the water has been driven off and the butter solids begin to fry. At this point you can take it off the heat if you want a paler, more subtle flavored product or you can continue to gently brown the butter solids until they've taken on a golden-brown color. This will impart a nice color to the finish product and a pronounced flavor. You must use a low heat so as not to burn the butter when the moisture content drops. Margarine should not be browned, just make sure the water content has been boiled off. If the butter gets hot enough to smoke, it's ruined and you should toss it, wash the pan and start over. Burned fat is oxidized fat and oxidized fats are bad news for long term health.

Once the moisture content of the butter has been driven off and it's at the color you want, remove from the heat and strain through a clean coffee filter into dry, hot, sterilized canning jars. When full to a half-inch from the top screw on a hot sterilized canning lid and ring. Put the jars in some cool, dark place where they won't banged around and allow to cool. There should be a noticeable amount of vacuum in the jar from after the contents cool.

For those concerned with possible botulism risks, the Clostridium botulinum bacterium requires a moisture content of at least 35% in order to break out of its spore form and produce its lethal toxin. If you've followed the above directions properly the moisture of the clarified butter will be far too low to support it or any other bacteria. The only concern here that I can see is possible mold growth and each jar should be closely examined before opening. If packed hot in sterilized jars with sound, sterilized lids this should not be a problem.

Naturally, like any culinary fat, canned butter will oxidize over time and become rancid. If you have the ability, vacuum sealing the jar will remove most of the oxygen and prolong storage life. That butter is going to be quite hot (hotter than boiling water) so be careful in doing this. Store the jars in the ubiquitous cool, dark place. At a reasonable storage temperature you should be able to get several years storage life, possibly more.

Now ghee does not taste like fresh butter so if you've never used it before I recommend that you only make a jar or two first and try it for while to see if it's going to be something you're going to use. I've made quite a lot of it in the past but when butter prices started climbing and climbing I stopped with it and went to other fat sources. Fluid milk (not cream) may also be preserved but there are no USDA approved methods for canning it either.

I've never canned butter, but I have milk. You don't have to pressure can milk, waterbath for an hour at a gentle boil.

-- Cindy

Well, for that matter you don't *have* to pressure can green beans or beef stew either. You can just water batch can most any old thing. Nevertheless if that food isn't high acid (pH 4.3 or lower) then you are at a greater risk of botulism poisoning with every jar that you open than you would be if you pressure canned it. Botulinum spores will survive a rolling boil all day long and still grow in your low acid foods. You may get away with it for forty years or the next jar may be your last.

.......Alan.

The Prudent Food Storage FAQ, v3.5

http://www.ProvidenceCo-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), April 19, 2000.


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