Making Butter
What goes best with good bread? Many would say good butter. So out of interest I set about making some.
Being a baker, it seemed natural to incorporate a lactic ferment, so cultured butter was the order of the day.
It went something like this:
- 523g double/heavy cream (not uht/up)
- 30g cultured buttermilk
- ferment at 27C
- initial pH 6.26
- target fermentation time 24hrs
- target pH 4.40-5.0
- however pH after 12hrs was already 4.47 and the ferment was thick; it tasted fine, so I called it a do and chilled overnight in the fridge
In the morning I churned in the Kenwood Major with the K beater on speed 1, for a low shear rate.
Churning took just under 5 mins, until the butter separated. I drained off the butter in a sieve and churned again on lowest speed for 1 min.
Drained again, squeezed into a ball and then kneaded by hand under cold water to expel the buttermilk.
Then shape as required.
Yield 280g
A very tasty end product; not something to do often, as little if any financial advantage (but neither has most breadmaking), but an interesting excercise, none the less.
Lance
How does the taste compare to butter you could buy?
I'm impressed with your cultured butter experiment. I only buy cultured butter, unsalted and salted (more expensive than normal but we love it on our sourdough.). I use unsalted in cooking as it gives me control over the salt amount. Thank you for your notes, as I may give this a try, just to experiment like you.
Cheers,
Gavin.
Yes, give it a try! It's easy to do - a lot easier than making bread.
Gary, flavour is clean, smooth and fresh tasting, just a hint of lactic sourness.
It reminds me of Normandy butter, eg Président, which we occasionally bough before it got very expensive in the UK.
Lance
cream to a three yr old and ask them to shake it real good. :)