Making Butter

In a previous blog I mentioned slathering butter onto fresh homemade bread.  This is how the butter was made for our eating pleasure.  Being brought up on a dairy farm I am a bit familiar with certain aspects of fluid milk and milk products.  This by no means makes me an expert.  However, I thought it might be interesting to those who have never been around such things, to learn a few things about one of the healthiest foods used by American citizens on a regular basis.

No Virginia, milk is not manufactured in a supermarket.  Most milk sold there comes from dairy cattle located sometimes great distances from where you see it on the shelf.  The milk is extracted from the cattle by machines specifically adapted for this purpose.  By the time it gets to you, the consumer, it has been changed in different ways to make it more adaptable in its usage.

One of the processes it goes through is called pasteurization, where it is heated and cooled in an exact manner to deter the product from possibly passing on certain diseases to you, the human consumer.  Another process is called homogenization.

With little doubt you’ve heard the adage that cream rises to the top.  It is used as a simile in many different scenarios in human relations.  This started with cream in milk rising to the top.  In natural milk, as it comes from the cow if left for several hours, much of the cream will rise to the surface of the container, separating from the base product.  Homogenization stops this from happening by breaking the fat globules in the cream into smaller parts, which will not so readily separate.

Milk as it comes from a cow contains between 3.5 and 4.0 % fat.  This milk fat is what butter is made from, and is often called butterfat.  When we were children we knew that we could let our cows’ milk sit overnight and the cream would rise.  Further we were aware that the cream could be scooped from the top and put into a container.  That cream could be changed into whipped cream relatively easily, and when applied to cake was delectable.  Further it was relatively easy to turn it into butter.  We knew that it was possible to pour a quart bottle about ¾ full of cream.  Then a cover could be placed on it, and the bottle could be shook by hand.  Soon the fat globules would separate within the cream and a ball of butter would form inside the bottle.  It is that simple, but, I’m sorry to say, cannot be done with homogenized milk as found on the supermarket shelf.

We actually rarely did this as it negatively affected the price we received for the milk we sold to earn our livelihood.