Hi - I saw the thread on looking for a cream separator & butter churn, and my question was a bit different. I have a small amount of cream (to experiment) that would not be enough volume to fill a butter churn (tho I don't have one) and was wondering if butter can be made using an electric blender or electric hand mixer? I have made whipped cream using a hand mixer in the past and it seems to be the same principle. Not having made butter before, how do I know when it has been mixed enough? Will a blender, with the little sharp metal tines, mix to harshly, breaking apart the proteins instead of loosening them? If I can get it to the right consistency this way, what do I do then - pour into a mold & just put it in the fridge? Thanks for any & all answers - Helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001

Answers

put the warm cream in a mason jar,, or any jar with lid,, roll it,, shake it,, not hard,,just keep it moving,(great for kids to do), it will fomr butter that way,,I do that with the small amount I get. After it forms,, you have to work it,, just smooosh it down with a wooden spoon, to get the rest of the milk out,salt at this time if you want. then it can go into a mold, or on a plate or whatever

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), November 01, 2001.

My kids made butter one year by shaking well-sealed jars filled half way with cream. Takes a good 20-40 minutes. Shake until you have a solid ball of pale yellow butter and some buttermilk. Then strain away the buttermilk, add some salt if you want, and press into molds. We used candy snowflake molds so everyone would get there own 'pat' of homemade butter.

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), November 01, 2001.

So, it must be a gentle shake? You are thinking the blender will be too rough? Helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001.

While I now make butter routinely in a food processor, I have inadvertently & unhappily made it while whipping cream (for a Thanksgiving dinner pnmpkin pie) with a hand mixer, so I don't see why you couldn't.

I very much prefer my butter cultured (the flavor's so much better), so I'd add a little bit of cultured buttermilk to the cream and let it set in a warm place overnight.

Then whip the warm (60°F) for however long it takes to break into a loose liquid with lumps floating in it (it varies widely). Drain the buttermilk (liquid) from the lumps (butter), and rinse the butter in cold water until all the buttermilk is out (or it will spoil quickly). Work all the water out of the butter with the back of a spoon, salt and refrigerate.

You don't need to mold it. Just put it in a bowl, and make bread immediately. Then enjoy yourself. :-)

-- Julia (charmer24@juno.com), November 01, 2001.

Ooooh, its hard to shake this jar & type one-handed at the same time!!! I wanna see this thing magically give me lumps of butter. It's just now 20 min & it looks kind of bumpy & frothy in the middle when I stop & look in there. Have buttermilk in the fridge, I can easily try the overnight culture thing. It seems like with the acid in there it would tend to curdle & form more easily - do you find that it is easier to make butter when you've cultured it? H

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001.

Helen, the forming of butter doesn't have anything to do with proteins, but with the fat separating out. So I don't think it will "come" any faster from cultured cream, that only affects the flavor. Did you make sure to let your cream get up to room temperature before you started shaking? I've had butter "come" in as little as five minutes if the cream was warm enough, but it usually takes 20-30 minutes. You will see yellow flecks start to form, then they'll start to clump together.

Julie mentioned this, but I really want to emphasize it. You must wash the butter with ice water, molding and squishing it with a spoon or spatula, and changing the water frequently, until the water runs clear. You have to get all the buttermilk out of the butter or it will spoil very quickly, and after putting that much work into it, you want it to last as long as possible!

We've always made our butter by shaking the cream in a half-full jar, when I was little my brothers and I would take turns. It was fun, kind of like being allowed to help turn the crank on the ice-cream machine! And a lot cheaper than a butter churn -- the ones with a glass jar and gears run about $150 last time I checked.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), November 01, 2001.

That is so neat! Here I could be paying $215 for a cream separator & another $60 for the butter churn... My sweetheart just came in and we looked in my jar, oh my gosh, there is a lump of butter in it! (I guess the warmth of my hot little hand got the temp up!) I think he will eat 1/2 of this on one pancake but he turned pink & said, Not after it took you 40 minutes to get that one little bit!!! Okay, another question - this is from sweet milk, not buttermilk - so what is that left in the jar when I strain it- just more skim milk? Smells normal.... I have another issue, you will probably laugh - I have heard from a number of different places, that when the milk is taken off by milking machine and goes in the bulk tank, it is too well mixed & you can't separate the cream out. Last night I milked by hand one cow (halfway - she was getting irritable with me) and brought in 2 qts. Strained, put into 2 qt jars in the fridge. Then when he brought in a pitcher from the bulk tank, I poured another qt from this to compare. We think the stuff from the bulk tank separated faster than that I hand milked! We have 2 Jersey heifers I hope to either hand- milk, or can use the milk machines onto a pail - so I can get the butter fat to make butter, cream for desserts, etc. and have the skim milk for drinking, so the experiment in my mind was worthwhile. But it was farmers here that seemed to think that you couldn't separate the cream, tho they had never (had the time) to try it. I think that's weird. So many modern misconceptions about milk & butter!! Thank you so much for all your help! You are all just great! Helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001.

Helen, My granddad used to fill a gallon jar 1/2 full. Then he'd roll the jar back and forth with his foot, while rocking in a rocker and reading the newspaper. It wasn't that he was lazy ... he just didn't want to waste time while reading the paper ! He made lots of butter in that manner ! Ralph

-- Ralph Rice (Roadapple@suite224.net), November 01, 2001.

From what I understand, the milk that separates from the butter is called the buttermilk. Therefore, it would be impossible to make butter starting with buttermilk. You did it right, Helen! Congrats!!

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), November 01, 2001.

The buttermilk you buy in the store is not the true buttermilk made from buttermaking, but a cultured product made from mesophilic, flavor producing bacteria grown in milk. Because it's produced from a known strain, it works great to make flavorful butter, but you could just let the milk sour slightly and get similar results, depending on which bacteria happened to sour your milk. The problem is that if it's a bacteria that makes a bad flavor, then you're out of luck, so I always add a bit of cultured buttermilk to get the odds on my side.

-- Julia (charmer24@juno.com), November 01, 2001.

I have done it with a gallon jar and watched tv and shake churned (which I prefer) and have also used a blender on low and reduced by a "plug into" ac pwr /speed controller as used to slow a drill.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 01, 2001.

A blender works just fine - a quickly, too!

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), November 01, 2001.

We don't have a cow now but for years I made butter in a blender. On hurried days, I even did the ice water wash thing in the blender, on the very lowest setting. Works great. The buttermilk left over is fine for anything you'd want buttermilk for: biscuits, drinking, pancakes, whatever. Don't throw it away!

-- Rosalie (deatline@globalsite.net), November 01, 2001.

The blender works excellent for me, too! Pour your cream in, set the blender...and go read the newspaper for 5 to 10 min. :-)!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), November 01, 2001.

Helen, in my experience milk that hits the bulk tank does not separate as fast as it does if you get it before. I think it has more to do with temperature as much as mixing, but I could be wrong. I quite often take my house milk out of the bottom of the releaser jar (holding jar in the end of the pipeline right before it is pumped into the bulk tank)in the milk room after I shut the vacuum pump off at the end of milking, and I notice that this milk separates in the refrigerator with a more distinct cream line than milk I take out of the bulk tank. Milk from the releaser jar after a few days in the fridge looks like skim milk with a heavy cream layer on top. Milk from the bulk tank never, ever, separates to this extent for me. I think if it has a chance to separate before it is cool it separates more completely.

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@nospammail.com), November 01, 2001.

This is so great!! I had no idea this was going to be so easy. When we start milking the Jersey heifers I want to milk them separately by machine into a pail, and use that - it will still be warm and not mixed with the bulk tank. All the other cows are Holsteins and they give a pretty low percent butterfat. Thank you, thank you - Countrysiders are so full of easy ways to do things!! helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001.

About cream from the hand milked cow - if you only milked her halfway out you got milk with relatively little fat. The first milk to come out is lowest in fat, the last highest in fat. That's one reason you always want to strip them out well. Also, a blender works great for making butter. We have a one gallon electric churn, but I usually use the blender anyway, it's much faster. Have your cream at around 50 degrees. When it starts to make butter (only takes 3 or 4 min.) you sometimes have to use a spatula to loosen the butter from the tines. When you have butter, drain the buttermilk off and wash (knead) the butter in cold water till the wash water is mostly clear. The more of the buttermilk you get out the longer the butter will keep. Then knead in salt to taste. Put in a container and put it in the fridge. I use the 2 cup lidded pyrex containers, they hold about one pound. If you get too much salt you can rinse the butter again to get some out.

-- Paula (chipp89@bellsouth.net), November 01, 2001.

Yeah, I only milked her halfway - not bad for the cow, we got the rest with the milking machine (so it gets our butterfat percent up, good for the milk check!!) Thanks for the advice - next time I will be sure to try the blender!! Helen

-- Helen, in WI (applebake@cybrzn.com), November 01, 2001.

Helen, If you make your butter in the blender, make sure it is room temperature or it will whip and overflow your blender. Ask me how I know :-) I always use the blender for my butter (3 quarts every other day) and it works great.

-- Julie (julieamc@eagleslair.net), November 01, 2001.