Making butter

[KBCraig]

As a home-school project today, we made our own butter. Delicious!

I have a second quart of cream fermenting overnight with plain yogurt, to make a batch of cultured butter tomorrow for comparison.

Despite the horror stories I'd heard (mostly from my mother, who grew up using an old-fashioned churn), it was remarkably easy. I had to use a hand mixer, because even on the lowest setting my blender made nothing but whipped cream.

[Kat Kanning]

Fun   We did that, and my mother used to make butter when I was a kid.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I've made four batches of cheese in the last month. I made the Basic Hard Cheese from this page. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html

[jerryswife]

I have inadvertently made butter when I was trying to make whipped cream.  I blame it on attention deficit.  It was yummy though.

[Pat McCotter]

We did this.

Making Butter

[KBCraig]

I've made four batches of cheese in the last month.

Cool. Thanks for the link.

I wish we had a source for raw milk locally. I could probably get raw goat milk; I should give that a try.

[CurtHowland]

I spent a year+ with a cow, chickens, horses, etc, back around 1999. Butter, cheese, eggs, fresh chicken. Yum!

Fabricating the cheese presses was lots of fun. PVC slotted on a table saw, getting rid of the shavings was the only "wasteful" part of it.

Wish I could join you up in the woods, I really don't like city life very much.

[littlehawk]

Butter and buttermilk making are awesome. (medicinal mj butter is even better)

I like goat cheese but not goat milk. Goatmilk is super nutritious but has a bit of a sour taste to it. Goat cheese is great and tastes a bit like swiss cheese. Goats a tuff to milk, a bit different than cow teatties. 

[Lloyd Danforth]

I'd like to get a cow. I was thinking that one could be co-oped among several people , one with kids who could use some of the milk, many of us who use 1/2 & 1/2 in our coffee, and the rest to cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, butter, kefir, etc.
We could share in the milking.

[CurtHowland]

I was thinking that one could be co-oped among several people

Having done this, I'll tell you that one cow puts out much more milk than one person can comfortably deal with. It must be because of the genetic manipulation that has been done over the last few centuries.

Anyway, I think a cow co-op would be a great idea. BTW, feeding a Jersey cow on alphalpha made the fats sour. Non-fat cheese tasted fine, but the butter/whole cheese had a bitterness to it that was not nice. Keep the cow on grass.

[KBCraig]

An essential item:

http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___The_Home_Dairy___Cream_Separators?Args=&view_all=&sort_by=

[KBCraig]

I like the cultured butter that I made today. It's softer and has a slightly different taste. I salted it a little more heavily, so that's different too. Goes great on a warm slice of sourdough bread.

I'm going to try the rustic Italian bread from that link Lloyd gave. It's similar to the no-knead recipe Michael Ruhlman gave some time back, including the trick of cooking it in a dutch oven for a better crust.

[CurtHowland]

Goes great on a warm slice of sourdough bread.

Mmmmmmmmmmm

[Pat K]

I am picturing in my mind Lloyd walking around the shire
leading a cow, and I'M smiling mightily.

[doobie]

KBCraig, where do you live?  There are a number of places in NH that have raw milk....and some even with raw cream.