Does anyone make their own buttermilk?

It's illegal in TN to sell raw milk to the consumer. So, I recently bought a "herd share". I paid a $40 one-time fee to own a part of a cow - I call her Bessie (although it's not really any one particular cow).

Then I get to come as often as I want to collect as much milk as I want. I pay $4.50/gallon to pay for the operating expenses of running this dairy herd.

I originally started looking into this when I wanted to make my own butter without all the additives and I found the farm pretty close to my house.

The first (and so far, only) time I did this, the young woman running the store/milk barn told me that I was the first person to ever ask about pasteurizing - that all of their customers want their milk for NOT being pasteurized. She said not to use plastic; glass was the best.

I took my gallon home, and since I live alone, I put a lot of it in sanitized mason jars and froze it (after skimming off the cream). I have homemade butter in my freezer and have a yogurt making machine on order.

This is a great video for making butter. You need to let the cream sit out for 12 hours in order that it develop the tangy flavor from airborne bacteria.

Making Butter

ON EDIT: I understand that when I skim the cream off the milk, I have skim milk left. Then the liquid left over when making the butter is called buttermilk. I tossed mine away. I will taste it next time - see what it's all about. Wonder if it can be frozen for later use??

Coolmom...agreed. There wasn't much "junk" in food years ago. DH just couldn't understand why companies would put all this junk in food. I explained it was all fillers to pump up the volume and make more money.

I too have developed more sensitivities. It's now to the point that I'm mostly gluten free... mostly organic...mostly non gmo and grassfed/no antibiotic organic meat and poultry. I don't eat farm fish. Only wild caught from pacific northwest or cold waters. It has really limited our dining out. Friends are sometimes frustrated... but if the choice is getting sick or eating the food??

With all the precautions... I still have gut issues and get sick. May have to step it up and completely get off gluten...and corn. I recently read that even non gmo corn can cause people problems if they've already been sensitized.

Did your daughter react to xanthum gum?

Thanks to all for the tips on buttermilk!!!

cts

Check the 'Cultures for Health' website. They sell cultures for buttermilk, yogurt, cheese, kefir, sourdough, etc. They also have educational videos.

If you only want buttermilk to make baking goods with...........try this version:

For every cup of milk, add 1-1/2 Tb fresh lemon juice. mix and allow to sit for 5 -10 minutes. Tender, fluffy, slightly tangy baked goods will be your reward.

covetsthesun wrote:
Thanks coolmom. This is exactly what I'm talking about! I looked at supposedly organic butter the other day and saw "natural flavors" on the ingredient list! I don't buy "regular" yogurt or cottage cheese now because it is full of fillers and "enhancers".

Some of these "enhancers" are major triggers for allergies. Drives me nuts. Whipping cream and heavy cream...half and half...same thing. Carageenan and other stuff.
thanks
cts

I never paid attention to this sort of thing until my daughter developed some strange food allergies in her teens, and I've developed some in my 50s. One of the things that showed up on her tests was the gum additives. Now she is very careful about reading labels and eating as clean as she reasonably can.

Truthfully, I don't think there used to be as much JUNK in food as there is now.

So, ya gets some milk from the farmer with cows. Ya takes a bucket of that milk and ya puts that on the stove and gradually heat it to 140'F. That pasteurizes the milk. Ya strains the milk so that it has no hard matter that doesn't belong. Ya takes the strained milk and puts it in a number of containers.

In the old days, there was as spring house that was cool and you could use a wide-topped container. After a day you would carefully skim off the cream into your butter churn.

We, my family, put the days milk into quart mason jars and put them in our fridge. We skimmed off some cream each day - say from 4 or 5 jars. After a week we made butter. Then we had the buttermilk. We used no additives.

BTW I'm 72 now. From the age of 7 I started milking one cow 2x per day. I earned $0.05 per milking. I got no allowance, so that was my paying chore.

Jersey and Guernsey cows are two of the best milkers for cream. Holsteins are better for a higher percentage of milk.

This looks like a 4-US quart butter churn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBXNF2dvOdw

:C
ps. IMHO the most thirst quenching beverage is whole milk.

Ozlander wrote:
It's sad when people don't know how to make Butter.
You make Butter, you get Buttermilk too.

I agree. I learned to make butter in the first grade! Everyone had to shake that mason jar till it was butter. Then we got to eat it on crackers.

The problem with making butter today... is finding heavy cream etc that doesn't have extenders and fillers. Next time you're at the grocer..read the labels. Natural flavors and emulsifiers are in the majority. I did find one...and only one... brand that was "clean".

Same with the majority of yogurts and other dairy products. Ice cream is anything and everything but ice cream!

My grandkids have so many allergies right now that I have to search for the cleanest foods possible. And for myself. I've had some bizarre reactions to some foods in the last few years that never gave me trouble. Locust bean? Guar gum? Carageenan? Those are huge triggers and are almost everything.

Oh well...off the soap box.
cts

It's sad when people don't know how to make Butter.
You make Butter, you get Buttermilk too.

Thanks coolmom. This is exactly what I'm talking about! I looked at supposedly organic butter the other day and saw "natural flavors" on the ingredient list! I don't buy "regular" yogurt or cottage cheese now because it is full of fillers and "enhancers".

Some of these "enhancers" are major triggers for allergies. Drives me nuts. Whipping cream and heavy cream...half and half...same thing. Carageenan and other stuff.
thanks
cts

Originally buttermilk was the liquid left over from churning milk to produce butter. All the fat was in the butter so it was essentially low fat milk.

Traditional Southern buttermilk is "cultured" with Lactobacillus bacteria, either starting with low fat or whole milk. It contains the live bacteria culture along with probiotics, just like yogurt.

The bacteria produces acid, giving a tart taste and thickening the protein in the milk. Unfortunately many producers feel the need to "enhance" the flavor and texture by adding junk ingredients like gums & flavor additives.

You should be able to find an organic buttermilk at better grocery stores. Beware that many may start with organic milk and add stuff to it, and still label the result organic.

If you make your own by adding vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk, you will get the tartness and thickness but not the complex taste and active cultures.

If you want to make your own with lactobacillus, start with some organic buttermilk and USE THIS METHOD.
You can make any amount. Just keep some of the previous batch to make the next batch, kind of like sourdough bread.

You can also buy lactobacillus powder at health food stores and start with that, although it would be trickier.