Making butter

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MagraAdam

ArboristSite Operative
. AS Supporting Member.
Joined
Apr 20, 2020
Messages
303
Reaction score
398
Location
Tasmania
Hi all, first time posting in this part of the forum. I'm normally over in the chainsaw thread, but I thought I'd document some of what I've done here.

I've made small batches of butter plenty of times by shaking a jar, and I've done it with an electric whisk too, but I like antique things so I got myself a butter churn. This style there doesn't seem to be much info on, most info is about dash churns. This type of barrel churn is/was very popular in Australia.

Photos are mostly taken every 5 mins, or when something of interest happened. All up it took 27mins of churning, but I took plenty of short breaks because it's a lot of effort!

I started with 6 litres of cream (that's 0.00166 cords for the Americans) and ended up with about 3 litres of butter milk and 2.6kg of butter.

After where the photos show, I rinsed it in water, squeezed it dry, added salt, and put it in a mould and pre cut it into slabs. It's now in the freezer and I'll turn it out tomorrow and package it up.

Some of these chins have 4 paddles. I assume they are a bit quicker, but also a lot harder due to the increased resistance.

I think my biggest lesson through this is to set aside enough time to do it right and not be in a rush.

I did scrape down the lid and sides once, but I'm not sure if it was needed.

I also recently found out that you want to start with cream at 16c to have it become butter the fastest. Mine was about 9c.

Photos below and in additional posts due to the limit of 10 per post
DSC_0797.JPGDSC_0798.JPGDSC_0799.JPGDSC_0800.JPGDSC_0801.JPGDSC_0802.JPGDSC_0803.JPGDSC_0804.JPGDSC_0805.JPGDSC_0806.JPG
 
Great Job there Adam, yes it takes time and effort thats for sure, no wonder they got house maids to do all this stuff years ago. :).
Nothing as good as home made butter, on home made bread/ scones/ toast etc, simply delish.

Wonderful to see the churn restored and repaired to work again too, well done.
 
My grandmaw used to make all us kids do the churning. She hand milked several cows each day and would save up all the cream for her butter money. she would give each of us a glass gallon jar and make us all set on the pourch with the jar between our knees. We would shake our knees side to side until the butter was made. Later one of my uncles bought her a electric churn and boy was all us kids glad. She used to give me a pad of butter to take home every week. I could eat it by itself. She also gave me one of the most memorible whippings I will never forget. I got into the fridge where she kept her cream and drank about a half gallon of pure cream, and she caught me. My ass still tightens up whenever I think about it. My wife only buys real butter at the store, not the same but way better than that oleo crap.
 
i like butter! usually just real butter. Land of Lakes salted. we get some others, and sometimes i use for convenience. but my LoL butter is double sealed and in refer. stays very fresh. sometimes i just have a slice and let it melt in mouth. pretend it is bread and butter or toast, butter only! lol... like when i am doing eggs. my eggs, done only in butter. yum.

i have made fresh butter from cream before. shake the jar method. was tasty. at a friends house - back in HS days.

only done in butter ~
P1010007.JPG
P1010008.JPG

P1010009.JPG
 
Next time you hand churn, take a pat of butter off your last batch, and chop it into little pieces. Then add to the current batch of cream.
See if that doesn't just speed up the process quite a bit.

Keep it about 50°-60°F too. Too hot and it makes soft butter. Too cold and it remains cream.
Was part of that long churning time just waiting for the cream to warm up a bit?
 
That is a cool churn. I’ve never seen one like that. I’ve still got the old glass churn I used when I was a kid. I need to break it out and put it to use.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Next time you hand churn, take a pat of butter off your last batch, and chop it into little pieces. Then add to the current batch of cream.
See if that doesn't just speed up the process quite a bit.

Keep it about 50°-60°F too. Too hot and it makes soft butter. Too cold and it remains cream.
Was part of that long churning time just waiting for the cream to warm up a bit?
good tip!

too hot and...
1640497984639.png
 
Back
Top