revived mom's butter churn

Jayne

Jayne

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One of the things I count in my 'inheritance' from my mom was a few of her family's kitchen implements that I managed to snag before her goofy sisters did. One of them is her butter churn, which she used growing up, but I don't know the backstory on exactly where it came from. I know it was important to her though, it's one of the few things she had left from her farmhouse and she had it displayed for at least 40 years in every kitchen.

Anyway, wild idea, I decided to fire it up and make some butter. I cleaned it and then sterilized it with 50/50 water/vinegar as I found on the interwebs about cleaning old churns, used veggie oil to lube the gears, tossed in some HT brand cream and got to cranking.

first_butter_churn_2.jpg

The instructions I was following said that you would know it's time to stop when you can't turn the crank anymore. That seemed pretty vague, but after about 10 min of cranking you could tell the viscosity went up, but not significantly. After about 12 minutes it went from "old engine old" to "concrete". It solidified almost immediately and I couldn't crank any more.

Sure enough, butter was in there:

first_butter_churn_4.jpg

I drained off the buttermilk, followed the instructions for rinsing out the butter to get the rest of the liquid out, and in the end, I had what looked like butter:

first_butter_churn_7.jpg

Ironically we have nothing in the house to try it on. I haven't made any bread, and the last muffins were eaten at breakfast. So... I'll have to wait a bit to try it and report back.

It wasn't that hard to do, and with the enclosed churn it wasn't even that messy. I'll do it again, might use the kitchenaid just to risk not breaking the churn, but using fresh creme is definitely something I want to try.

I think mom would be happy, even if it tastes like crap.
 
We once had my wife’s grandmother’s churn, but it was the older school type with the long broomstick handle with a round flat plunger on one end to churn the cream.

I think that churn got gone in a yard sale.
 
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Outstanding! I love to see old stuff get new life. Whay you have there is probably better for you than the " I can't believe it's almost plastic" you buy at the store. Good job sir. Let us know how it tastes.
 
My oldest daughter had the 3 G-kids shake a quart jar with cream in it to make butter.
The kids had fun and she said the butter was great.
 
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Schattenreiter said:
Outstanding! I love to see old stuff get new life. Whay you have there is probably better for you than the " I can't believe it's almost plastic" you buy at the store. Good job sir. Let us know how it tastes.
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I was researching churns online and they make fancy new ones and say "built to last generations".... yet the gears are freakin' plastic.

yea yea, our guns are made of plastic now too, but I don't trust plastic gears to keep working in 100 years.
 
Awesome, your mother will be proud.
Now, if it was me, I will be adding copious amount of salt.
 
Jayne said:
I'm not just eating butter, that's crazy talk.

I'll bake a loaf of bread, then try it on that.
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Put some on a cracker. I used to do that.
 
Jayne said:
I was researching churns online and they make fancy new ones and say "built to last generations".... yet the gears are freakin' plastic.

yea yea, our guns are made of plastic now too, but I don't trust plastic gears to keep working in 100 years.
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Now look up "butter stamps". Just saw one for sale local to me for $20.
 
I don't know how you didn't tip a knife or something in there to get a little sample. I don't eat butter either but I'd get a taste to see if what I made was worth the effort.
 
So... butter test today. It's noticeably different. It's not as sweet as whatever costco stuff we normally use, the flavor seems more pronounced or somehow "deeper". I know that makes no sense.

The sad part is that when putting it back in the fridge I knocked the container off the shelf and it hit the ground and shattered... infusing the butter with glass fragments. Sigh. So 1/3 of my supply just went in the trash. Good thing it wasn't the larger full container that was lost.
 
Make sure to get all the "milk" rinsed out, other wise it will sour. You need to add some salt also.

When I was in the 7th and 8th grade, I had a dairy cow and milked before and after school. We had milk running out our ears. We made butter, ice cream, gave away milk and fed lots of barn cats. I will never complain about the price of milk.
 
beamernc said:
When I was in the 7th and 8th grade, I had a dairy cow and milked before and after school. We had milk running out our ears.
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Sounds like you were doing it wrong.
 
Also, the thread title could be typed into an adult site search window and I feel certain it would return at least one result.
 
kcult said:
Also, the thread title could be typed into an adult site search window and I feel certain it would return at least one result.
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I was brave and did a Google search (revived mom's butter churn). Lots of weird stuff... Florence Henderson?

Now that song is in my head... :eek:
 
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To use up the buttermilk I had from making the butter, I made some biscuits that you can freeze and then just pop in the oven when you need biscuits. Pretty easy to whip up:

freezer_biscuits.jpg

This morning I pulled a few out of the freezer bag and 18 minutes in the oven and bam, we have flaky biscuits. I'm really surprised it turned out as well as it did; even the wife said I could make them again. So now I know I can make butter (she's already asking me to make some honey butter, so I suspect I'll have to grovel to @Sneakymedic to get some of those damn bee squeezins') and then use the byproduct to make biscuits.

freezer_biscuits_2.jpg


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Get some butter paddles to make it easier to work out the moisture. We have one of the old style thumpers but we make butter with a hand cranked food processor. Buttermilk biscuits with fresh butter rock!!
 
I was whipping cream in a 6qt cuisinart and forgot about it. I came in to find liquid in a 5' diameter but some nice butter in the bowl. Unfortunately it had sugar and vanilla added so the cats got it instead.
R
 
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