November 30, 2011 - 3:18pm
A Bottle of Butter
Hi all. Cruising around the various forums and recipes and I see an ingredient ' 1 bottle of soft butter'. I live in northern Illinois USA and here we have butter in sticks, tubs and by the pound. What is bottled butter and how much butter is in the bottle? And where does one find this item? And can melted & cooled butter be used in place of 'bottled butter'? I'm 'fused here... Thanks in advance to one and all! Joey the Doeyo
Share
Comments
Hi Joey. While I've never heard of butter in a bottle, I think you can find margarine in squeeze bottles in some stores. Sounds rather unappetizing, frankly.
Such vague instructions are just another example of why it's best to scale ingredients. You know exactly what the recipe calls for and can measure precisely.
Well it is clearly not a common American condiment, so no help on my end. I did see some information (such as how to bottle, where to buy a bottle, etc.) with a quick google search so do be sure not to ignore the obvious.
It's called "I can't believe it's not butter"
and it isn't. The subliminal suggestion that it is or could be is disgusting. Butter flavoured goop in a bottle.
Maybe the context will help us help you.
If it's not that icky stuff Mini mentions, it could be a preserved butter like you find in North Africa or clarified butter (ghee), both of which are soft and are often sold in bottles or jars.
How to Bottle ButterCan you ever imagine living without butter? Me either?
Today's Assignment
Learn how to bottle butter!Bottled Butter Instructions
(I haven't tried this yet, but got it from someone who attended the workshop that has done it. I look forward to trying it soon.)
1. Use any butter that is on sale. Lesser quality butter requires more shaking (see #5 below), but the results are the same as with the expensive brands.
2. Heat pint jars in a 250 degree oven for 20 minutes, without rings or seals. One pound of butter slightly more than fills one pint jar, so if you melt 11 pounds of butter, heat 12 pint jars. A roasting pan works well for holding the pint jars while in the oven.
3. While the jars are heating, melt butter slowly until it comes to a slow boil. Using a large spatula, stir the bottom of the pot often to keep the butter from scorching. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes at least: a good simmer time will lessen the amount of shaking required (see #5 below). Place the lids in a small pot and bring to a boil, leaving the lids in simmering water until needed.
4. Stir the melted butter from the bottom to the top with a soup ladle or small pot with a handle; pour the melted butter carefully into heated jars through a canning jar funnel. Leave ½” of head space in the jar, which allows room for the shaking process.
5. Carefully wipe off the top of the jars, then get a hot lid from the simmering water, add the lid and ring and tighten securely. Lids will seal as they cool. Once a few lids “ping” shake while the jars are still warm, but cool enough to handle easily, because the butter will separate and become foamy on top and white on the bottom. In a few minutes, shake again, and repeat until the butter retains the same consistency throughout the jar.
6. At this point, while still slightly warm, put the jars into a refrigerator. While cooling and hardening, shake again, and the melted butter will then look like butter and become firm. This final shaking is very important! Check every 15 minutes and give the jars a little shake until they are hardened in the jar! Leave in the refrigerator for an hour.
7. Canned butter should store 3-5 years or longer on a cool, dark shelf. It does last a long time. Canner butter does not “melt” again when opened, so it does not need to be refrigerated upon opening, provided it is used within a reasonable length of time. And here's another article on it: Ready or Not #25: Don’t Bottle Butter
Posted on | December 11, 2008 | No Comments
I am afraid that I might anger some hardcore bottlers and canners with this article. I hope I don’t. Actually, anyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty heavy duty canner and bottler myself. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing to look at, but it also gives me a sense of security that I can take care of my family and keep them well fed. That being said, let’s go on to some things that maybe we shouldn’t bottle.
My friend gave me a recipe to bottle butter for long term storage. She asked me if I had bottled butter. I told her I hadn’t. I have always tried to keep a case or two of butter and/or margarine in my freezer, so I really didn’t see the value in it. I thought that it might be kind of fun or interesting to say, “Yeah, I’ve bottled butter before” but not that much fun.I have also heard about people who bottle their bread and cakes to store for long term storage, but to make the bottled bread safe, you must add lemon juice to increase the acidity level. That just makes the bread taste bad and bottled bread has a peculiar texture. I like freshly made, light, fluffy, yummy tasting bread.
I decided not to bottle my breads, cakes or butter because I just didn’t see the value in it. Fresh baked bread just tastes better, but when I read an article about the dangers of bottling bread and butter I became downright concerned for those who do.
Bottling vegetables, fruits, and meat can be very safe, and economical, if you take the right precautions and follow tried and true recipes that have been tested by the USDA or other reputable companies like Ball and Mason. But there are some things that you really shouldn’t bottle.
There are only three things that need to be present to cultivate botulism: low moisture, low acidity and little or no oxygen. You can’t add lemon to increase the acid content of butter, which does have water in it, and there is no way of knowing if you have killed all of the germs when sterilizing the bottles. If you haven’t, you can actually be helping the bacterium Clostridium botulinum to breed in your butter, and as you know, botulism is a potentially fatal illness. So again I ask, “Why take the chance?”
I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon...
able to buy NuMaid (brand name) canned butter, it came in a can that you opened with a can opener. The trappers bought it for the trap lines (no electricity, and because its tinned no need to worry about bears) it was delicious and no one ever worried about the botulism. As for regular butter I would make ghee over canning the butter and having to shake up the whole thing to re incoporate the milk solids.
Personally I have never worried about botulism, its not really a worrisome thing if you sterilize the jars right, (20 minutes in the oven is fine) and boil the lids not simmer, a rolling boil for 5 minutes, and use a lid magnet over fingers to get them out of the water. My mother used to can meat in a water bath canner (they didn't have a pressure canner) and also all sorts of vegetables, and since she died at 89, certainly never got botulism. In fact of all the people who canned things all my life I have never heard of a bad jar of canned food. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I've never seen it, or heard of it in my entire lifetime.
only in the sense that I agree with you and have been making pickled peppers the "WRONG" way for many years (the old-fashioned way, same as my granny and uncle made them in the 'old country'.) I grew up eating those foods. I'm still here, over 60 years of age, writing about it today. I've never known anyone to get it, except once, in a TV drama I used to watch in the 70's...and they were doctors, who got injections of anti-biotics within ten minutes after the first symptoms. Of course, they survived. That's because the script-writers needed them for the next episodes! Heheheh!
Clostridium botolinum SPORES are NOT killed until a temperature over 140°C (285°F) is reached. That might be easy to achieve in any typical oven for sterilizing the jars, but the spores are usually found on the foods that we pickle or bottle and the simple "boiling water bath" doesn't kill the spores, if they're there. General guidelines for non-acidic fruits and veges, such as jalapenos and bell peppers suggest that you need to make sure the acidity level [pH] is below 4.6, which is REALLY sour! Then, most of the time, the spores can't reproduce...but sometimes they do, anyway, at lower pH (higher acidity) levels...
Over 80% of botulism poisoning in the USA occurs after eating home-made pickles or visiting Mexican-style restaurants! Pickled sweet peppers are one item I can't buy here, so I take a big chance and make my own, without a canning outfit. The web-sites I got my best recipes from have all disappeared. I suspect that the Universities that have "Food Science" departments got them shut down.
Best,
Adam
My uncle died of it. It's real. Botulism is so rare these days in the US that we forget how we got to this point but it was through prevention establishing high standards and well-tested methods that reduce the likelihood of it occurring.
I concur with the comment "Ready or Not-Don't Bottle Butter" and doeyou,too. I can/preserve/dry/pickle/ferment fruits and veggies but I won't be doing butter anytime soon.
There are many canners who will tell you how they "oven can" or "microwave can" and never had a problem. I also have met people that keep rattlesnakes and perport them to be fine pets. The consequence of a single failure is catastrophic-no thanks. I stick to the tested rather than folklore methods for safety.
CAnned/bottled ghee may do the trick in the recipe, unless it was a recipe specifically aimed at the butter-flavored glop.
with food safety is the fact that everyone sees pre washed, just dish it up, and think that its ok, yes it might be fine, but wash everything no matter what the lables say.
@clazar123 I'm sorry you lost your relative and to such a nasty thing as well. But I will say that butter is probably safer than pickles as far as botulism, I've never heard of anyone dying of botulism from butter, and I think that would have been big news, lysteria now I can see since that seems to be rather prevalent in dairy items like cheese.
I wouldn't can it like they say using the milk solids in the jar at all, clarify the butter, and pour into very hot jars and cap imeadiatly with very hot lids and it should be fine. I wouldn't guarantee it for years but for a year it should be fine. In point of fact half the food that is the biggest thing going is made with mold and other little beasties, so do we quit eating cheese, no we just take very good care and clean the kitchen well, the utensils well and wash everything twice or three times when handling foods that have potential problems.
If you have a good recipe and follow it well, and use basic food safety rules, you shouldn't have problems with spoilage. Most of the time, the culprit for spoilage is improper storeage of the canned food, or improper handling of it after opening. My mother always, ALWAYS, boiled any canned food other than sourkraut for at least 20 minutes at a hard boil in lots of water. Which destroys the actual value of the canned food, but hey you don't get sick from it. Especially anything with meat or peas (carrots, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, beets, and parsnips were stored without canning) or beans, and soups or stews that were canned. She said the Health agency said that boiling it or heating to boiling point and holding at that point for 20 minutes killed botulism spores and the food would be safe to eat. Can't do that with pickles, or sour kraut (although she did boil the kraut and potatoes together so I guess you can) and of course cheese is basically a free for all, so the only thing you can do is really be careful.
I'm not sure why University health officials should be shutting down or have the ability to even consider shutting down web sites, when the manufacutring and producing companies have just as many recalls of the products for things like lysteria, and salmonella and ecoli, maybe they should be spendin their time going through those plants and worry less about home canners and picklers. Next thing we won't be able to make coffee at home, because we might burn ourselves on the expresso machine we bought!