I don’t ever remember making butter with either of my grandmothers but it’s definitely something I’ve watched and done many times with my Mom. I hope my kids are able to make butter with Grandma Doris. She has it down to a science.
First off she uses the best raw milk around from her and my Dad’s dairy Daloris Dairy
She skims the cream off the milk using a quarter cup measuring cup puts it in quart jars and stores the cream in the fridge until she is ready to start. When skimming it’s okay to get some of the milk, the butter will form better if there is regular milk with the cream but just a little bit.
She sets the cream out on the table about 4 hours before she makes cream, this is so the cream will warm up to just cooler then room temperature. If it gets too warm it is hard to get the whey separated from the butter but if it is too cold it takes a lot longer for the butter to form.
When the cream is ready she poors the jar of cream into an older blender, newer fancier blenders don’t always work as they are too powerful and melt the butter not allowing it to form. She lets the blender run until the sound changes, she then uses a plastic spatula to carefully move the cream mixture around and release any air bubble that may form around the blades, occasionally she does this while the blender is running but she has to be very careful not to get the spatula too close to the blades.
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Once the butter forms she then uses the plastic spatula to press the butter together and moves it to a bowl of cold water. After she gets all the butter out she then pours the whey/buttermilk into a pan on the stove and makes it into yogurt. Once she has done this with all her quarts of cream she takes the bowl of cold water and butter to the sink and kneads the butter with her hands, pressing it together and will even turn the faucet to cold and rinse the butter while she presses it together until she gets all the whey out.
Once the buttermilk is removed from the butter my mom will flatten the butter out on a plate and sprinkle salt on it. She’ll mix the salt in and then add more until it is as salty as she likes by tasting it.
After the butter is done she will measure it into about 1 cup measurements and wrap each measurement with Saran Wrap and store it in the fridge until it is ready to use. It’s the best butter in the world!