Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
A churn is not necessary to butter making, but it might make your life a bit easier if you plan
to make a lot. Churns have taken many forms over the years. The most interesting might be the
rocking chair churn, which no doubt made for some happy mommies as they rocked their babies
to sleep without neglecting their butter-making chores. Even today, you can buy electric churns,
hand-crank churns, plunger-style, dasher-style, cylinders, and more.
On a diFFerent Scale
Just experimenting with butter? Put your cream—even store bought—into the blender and let it go.
After a few minutes, you can pour the buttermilk out from beneath it, salt and blend a bit more, then rinse
under cold water while kneading and squeezing it together. Voilà! Yummy, fast butter that will whet your
appetite.
A little creativity goes a long way. You can certainly think outside the box to get your butter made.
Among the more intriguing ideas, I find the idea of a gallon paint mixer to be absolutely inspired.
If you can get a container to fit inside it, this could be a really efficient and creative way to make
butter!
Yogurt
Milk is a somewhat delicate product that can spoil quite easily, especially in the days when there
were no refrigerators or preservatives. For that reason, it didn't take long for people to learn to con-
trol the “spoilage” via fermentation and use cultured milk to their advantage. And advantages there
are! Not all bacteria are bad bacteria, you see, and some are actually vital to our well-being. Yogurt
is an age-old example of this, and surprisingly simple to boot. Buttermilk is also a fermented/
cultured milk product.
The difference between cultured products and simply milk-gone-bad is temperature and environ-
ment control. Introducing the right bacteria and then keeping it at a favorable temperature turns
the sugars in milk (lactose) into acid (lactic acid). As the neutral milk turns into acidic yogurt, the
milk-protein casein reacts and thickens it.
Because of this, the ingredients needed to make yogurt are simply milk and a starter.
If you have
not yet made yogurt or do not have access to someone who has, Dannon Plain is a good starter.
Whatever brand you use, be sure it has active live cultures. Be careful to not open it until you are
ready to use it. We only want to introduce the good bacteria—not any foreign intruders.
As for the equipment and tools you need to make yogurt, it depends on your method. Because
temperature is such a vital factor, you should have a dairy or candy thermometer on hand regardless
of the method you choose.
