Let's start at the beginning...MILK, well actually it's the cows, but to shorten this up we'll start with milk. The milk you buy in the store is homogenized and pasteurized. What do those two words mean?
Well...homogenization is essentially breaking up the fat globules in milk into smaller sized globules so the cream doesn't seperate from the milk. Here's a much more interesting in depth discussion of the why's and how's of homogenization.
Pasteurization is basically a heat sterilization process. It's used to kill the "bad bugs" in milk. It also kills the good bacteria, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other beneficial ingredients found in raw milk. There's a whole debate about raw vs. pasteurized milk going on, and it's so lengthy that it warrants a whole post of its own. At any rate, this link will give you some more info about the pasteurization of milk. As far as legality, in Massachusetts it is legal to sell raw milk right from the farm, but you won't find it in a store. The farms that sell it are also subject to monthly imnspections and tests, far more frequent than mainstream commercial dairies.
Now another factor is what the cows eat...do they eat grain, grass, hay? Does it really make a difference? Well I'm no cow expert, but here's what I knew starting out, the feed affects the butterfat content of the milk, and milk from grass fed cows has more good fatty acids (CLA) than milk from grain fed cows.
So I found myself 3 kinds of milk, all unhomogenized, some pasteurized, some unpasteurized.
So far I have no churn, just using the "mason jar + milk + lots of shaking" method, which takes alot of shaking. I figured I'd enlist some help, but first I wanted to make sure it worked.
I let the cream rise, sucked it off with a turkey baster, and let it sit out and come to room temperature. Then Aaron shook it alot...
Aaron's test batch, it actually worked!!
I grabbed 2 little family members with lots of energy and put them to work shaking.
This one liked to shake under my desk..
Having fun?
...they were great on clean up, including dishes.
I even made them make their own supper!
Mmmmm...calzones.....
But wait this post is about butter... so here ya go..
Here are my findings:
- Color: very light color
- flavor: good, but margarine-like, almost oily
- Color: much brighter yellow, clearly much yellower than grain fed
- Flavor: creamier, more buttery
- Color: yellow, darker than grain fed, but not as bright as grass fed
- Flavor: Creamy, very buttery and smooth tasting, the best of the three
- *The cows are usually grass fed but in late November, early December they start getting hay.
- I'd be interested to see how the color/flavor changes when the cows are back on grass in the Spring
The butters shown in the same order as above from left to right: grain fed, grass fed, hay fed
This picture shows the color differences pretty well.
The Verdict: the last butter is the best.
As for the leftovers from making butter; the buttermilk
...the first 2 times there wasn't much left so the dogs got it. The third time I saved it and will be making Sunday morning whole wheat buttermilk pancakes! YUM
In general, making butter with a canning jar is fun, but not something I'd consider doing to supply all of our butter needs. It's time consuming, messy(especally if the lid comes off), and a lot of work for very little butter. I did try using our food processor for the last batch, and I didn't like the results, the butter got too hot and was hard to seperate from the buttermilk. In the future I have hopes of buying a real butter churn which makes the idea of making larger batches much more conceivable.
http://www.lehmans.com/ sells a churn similar to a Dazey churn that I think would serve us well.
one day....one day..hee hee
you will live in my house and I will make butter with you.
and I will have my own cow, and some chickens, and bees, and turkeys and sheep....and a big old broken down farmhouse with land and stone walls...
But until then I buy my raw milk, make my butter, and dream.
=0)
