How to Make Butter from Raw Milk
Ever since we picked up our first milk cows, Annabelle and Bessie, the one thing I could not wait to try was homemade raw butter. I mean, yes, I was excited to drink raw milk and thought of the endless amount of ways we would be able to use it. But, I was really excited about the butter because I'd never had real. fresh. butter.
Also, the chemistry of the whole process just really intrigued me and I wanted to see the milk turn into butter (sorry, my nerdiness was going to come out eventually).
After a little over a year, I finally got to try making homemade raw butter from Bessie's milk. I was so excited and I'd love to tell you that I nailed it down on my first try. But, nope. Ha! I failed.
I made something. Some sort of curdy butter/buttermilk mixture that looked weird and tasted weird. It took me a couple more tries before I could finally say, "Yes, now that is butter."
So, if you're like me and you want to make some homemade butter, raw or pasteurized, I'm sharing this post for you. Because real butter is awesome and homemade real butter is even better. You've just got to try it.
Why make homemade butter?
If you've never had homemade butter, it's rich and creamy and unlike anything you can buy at the store. When you make your own butter, you know exactly what it's made of and you get to control the quality of your ingredients. You end up with butter that is not only delicious, but also free of the preservatives and additives found in most commercially-produced butter.
Did you know that even some of the store-bought butter labeled real and organic have "natural flavoring" added to it. So, if it's real butter… why does it need added flavoring and how did it taste before?
I digress.
If you have access to raw milk, making raw butter is an even better choice. Raw milk is not pasteurized, which means it retains all of its natural enzymes and nutrients. When you turn that raw milk into butter, you're getting all of those benefits in a delicious, easy-to-use form.
Health benefits of raw grass-fed butter
There was a time when the main narrative was that butter is bad for you. Thankfully, we're starting to see more and more people taking charge of their own nutrition and questioning the truth in food labels and marketing misinformation.
Butter from grass-fed cows raised on pasture is a nutritional powerhouse. Just to name a few benefits, grass-fed butter is a great source of Vitamins A, D and K2, which are good for our vision, cardiovascular health and bone health. Butter sourced from purely grass-fed cows also contains 500% more CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) than cows fed a typical dairy diet. CLA helps protect against cancer, supports muscle growth, and has immune system benefits, just to name a few.
Raw butter is simply butter made from raw milk from grass-fed cows. Raw milk is unpasteurized and unhomogenized—cow's milk in its natural form, with all the beneficial enzymes and nutrients that are otherwise removed, damaged, or destroyed from pasteurization. This means that raw butter has all the combined benefits mentioned above, making it superior to its commercially-processed counterparts.
So how do I make butter?
You just need one ingredient.
Cream. That's it. If you’re making it from raw milk, simply skim the cream off of your milk and use that to make butter. Otherwise, you can buy heavy cream from the store, preferably organic and grass-fed. The steps to make butter are the same for both.
To start with, I like to set my cream on the countertop at room temperature for about 1-2 hours to warm it up a bit. This allows the butterfat to separate more easily from the buttermilk. I then pour all the cream into my stand mixer and whisk it on high.
When it starts to look like whipped cream, you’re almost there.
Keep on whisking. At this point, you will start to notice a lot of splatter so you'll want to cover up the bowl. You can use a shield or kitchen towel to drape over your mixer.
Pretty soon, you'll start to see the whipped cream flattening back down and the butterfat starting to separate from the buttermilk. I like to take peeks as this starts to happen, at the expense of getting splashed in the face with buttermilk or a small chunk of butter. But hey, it comes with the territory.
And finally, you have butter.
When you start to hear a lot of sloshing and see larger chunks of yellow butter getting tossed around in the buttermilk (the liquid that looks like watered down milk), turn off the mixer. Your butter is ready to be collected.
Rinse it well.
The goal here is to remove as much of the buttermilk from the butter. The less buttermilk is left, the longer your butter will last and the better it will taste.
I like to pour the butter and buttermilk into a mesh strainer, catch the butter, and use another container to save the buttermilk for later. Then, I put the butter back in the mixer, add in some ice cold water, just enough to cover the butter, and turn the mixer on low speed. This allows the mixer to rinse off the remaining buttermilk for me.
After a few seconds, turn off the mixer and pour the water down the drain. Repeat this process 3-4 times until the water is clear. Then, using a wooden spatula, press the butter against the side of the bowl to pack it and squeeze the rest of the buttermilk and water out.
Alternatively, you can grab the butter with your hands and start forming it into a ball while continuing to squeeze the remaing buttermilk and water out. Either way works. The key is to keep the butter and your hands cold. (Some people also like to rinse and squeeze the butter while holding it under cold running water.)
Add salt and herbs if you'd like.
We usually leave our butter unsalted because I find it more versatile for cooking and baking. Feel free to add salt and herbs to yours. You just made butter and you get to season it the way you want. ;)
And it's time to store your butter.
Once you've removed as much buttermilk as you can, it's time to store your butter. You can leave it as a ball, wrap it in parchment paper, and put it in a ziploc bag, or store it in these silicone molds for easy measurements. Refrigerate it and you're done!
How long does homemade butter last?
In general, the more buttermilk you rinsed off, the longer the butter will last. We've found our homemade raw butter to last for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator and a good few months in the freezer. I can't tell you an exact amount because we've usually eaten it way before it starts to sour. ;)
How much cream do I use to make butter?
That just depends on how much butter you want to make and how much cream you have available. I've found that 2 cups of cream makes approximately 1 cup of butter. If you're making a lot of butter, I suggest making it in batches. The more cream you use, the longer your mixer will have to run and the more splatter you'll get. But, the process is the same.
If you're making raw butter, the cream availability and taste will depend on the season. During the spring when cows are able to graze on the sweet springtime grass, their milk is sweeter and creamier. In turn, the butter you'll make from this cream will be a vibrant yellow. During the winter months, if they're eating hay, their milk will not be as rich, and you'll notice that with the butter, too.
Since butter stores well in the freezer, it's not a bad idea to stock up in the spring and summer so you can enjoy this yumminess all year long.
What can I do with the buttermilk?
Now that you've accomplished making butter, you can turn your attention to the buttermilk. You can drink it, bake with it, add it to smoothies, make salad dressing with it, or add it to mashed potatoes and soups. I like to culture it and use it in biscuits and cupcakes as well. Just be aware that cultured buttermilk is not the same as buttermilk straight out of your butter-making process and they are not interchangeable.
It's pretty simple, actually.
I didn't get it right the first time, but once I figured it out, the process of making homemade raw butter was pretty simple. I hope you find this tutorial helpful and encouraging, so that you can make your own butter, too. I promise you, it's not that hard, it's fun, and it makes you feel like you gained some well-earned homemade food points.
Raw Milk Butter Recipe Card
Let raw cream sit at room temperature for about 1-2 hours before making butter.
Pour cream into the bowl of your mixer.
Whisk on high until it start to turn into whipped cream. Continue whisking on high until you start seeing the butter separating from the buttermilk. When you hear a lot of buttermilk splashing around, turn off the mixer.
Using a strainer, separate the butter from the buttermilk. Save the buttermilk for later. Put the butter back in the mixer.
Add a little ice water and mix again at low speed to rinse off remaining buttermilk. Repeat 3-4 times until the water is clear.
Continue to squeeze buttermilk out by forming the butter into a tight ball. Dip in cold water or hold under cold running water to keep the butter cold.
Add salt to taste or leave it unsalted.
Enjoy!
