This article is a guide to making butter at home. It will cover making butter with modern appliances, and also how to make butter once the lights go out…
Making butter with electricity
Making butter with household appliances is a fairly simple process.
What You’ll Need:
1) Heavy cream, with no added sugar. It takes a lot of cream to make a moderate amount of butter: 1 gallon of cream will yield roughly 3 pounds of butter. Warm the cream to room temperature before use.
2) A large metal bowl. Chill in refrigerator before use.
3) An electrical mixer
4) Plastic wrap
5) A blender
6) A smaller bowl
How to Do It:
1) Put the cream into a bowl.
2) Put the blades of the electrical mixer into the bowl.
3) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (to avoid spraying everywhere).
4) Turn on the electrical mixer and whip the cream.
5) After a few minutes, the cream will have turned to whip cream. If this is what you want, add some sugar and it is ready to go.
6) After 10-15 minutes of whipping, the cream begins to separate itself into buttermilk and butter. Do a taste test- if it tastes like cream, keep whipping. If it tastes like butter, it’s ready.
7) Now we need to separate the buttermilk from the butter, to avoid spoilage. Put the butter in a blender with cold water (if it’s too warm the butter will melt, and that’s not good). Blend for a minute, then drain out the water. Keep doing this until the water you drain is clear (this means all the buttermilk has been removed). It may take over half a dozen times until this happens.
8) Remove the butter and put it in a bowl. Press it with a spoon, to remove any last water remaining.
Making Bannock – The food of the mountain men
The buttermilk can be used in cooking or baking (or just to drink).
The butter can be stored in a freezer for up to three months.
Post-apocaliptic butter making
So let’s say the apocalypse happens, and we lose such comforts of civilization as electricity and running water. Well that is no reason to not have your butter tarts tasting as creamy as possible! Butter was made for centuries before our modern luxuries existed, and can be made in just about any disaster scenario.
Without a blender, it will be more difficult to fully separate the butter and buttermilk, so the butter won’t last as long. But this isn’t a big deal, since we don’t have refrigeration available to us anyway. In a post-apocalyptic world, we make our butter when we want to use it!
So let’s begin.
What You’ll Need:
Heavy cream (perhaps you have some in food storage, or you got some from milking your cows or goats). One pint of cream will equal roughly one cup of butter.
1) A glass jar
2) A separate cup or jar
3) A bowl
4) A fork
5) Sugar, salt or other seasoning (optional)
How to Do It:
1) Put the cream into the glass jar. Put the top on tightly.
2) Turn the jar sideways, and begin shaking from the top to bottom.
3) At around the 7 minute mark, the cream will have turned to whip cream. If this is what you want, add some sugar and it is ready to go.
4) After 10 minutes of shaking, the cream begins to separate itself into buttermilk and butter.
5) Pour the buttermilk into the separate jar/cup. This can be used to drink or cook with.
6) Pour some water (from your emergency water supply) into the jar with the butter. Make sure it’s enough to cover the butter. Shake the container a bit to wash off as much of the buttermilk as possible.
7) Drain the water from the jar, leaving just the butter.
8) Put the butter in the bowl, and mix it around with the fork, trying to remove any remaining buttermilk.
9) Pour out any buttermilk that has collected.
10) Add some salt or seasoning if you wish.
You now have some fresh butter to help feed you and supply you with the energy you need to keep fighting off hard times.
By John M.
Self-sufficiency and Preparedness solutions recommended for you:
Food for Freedom (If I want my family to survive, I need my own food reserve)
Liberty Generator (How to gain complete energy independence)