Talk to me about butter

[Faliciagayle]

According to the WAP Shopping Guide, the farm where we buy our milk and eggs is one of the "best" places to buy pastured butter

When is "butter season?" Is it upon us now or are we coming into it?
I know why pastured butter is good but at $11 a pound, I haven't bought any. Not particularly keen on the taste of raw butter, either, but I probably need to get over that.

Raw and cultured are the same? Different?

Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of freezer space nor the option of expanding existing space, so buying for the future is out.

[Proudmom2Teeg]

Curious as well!

[Magelet]

raw and cultured are not the same. Raw is raw. cultured, the cream is pasturized, and then cultured, and THEN turned into butter. It's more digestable than regular, and has a lovely flavor (though I didn't love the flavor at first.) Here, butter season is not quite upon us. the butter is getting yellower, but not the full yellow of summer butter.

Pastured butter is $11 a lb? holy cow! here, we get organic valley summer pastured butter for oh $7 a lb. (and other grass-fed or mostly grass-fed butter year round. we base it off what is yellowest and affordable7 would be the most expensive, sometimes it's more like 6, and the pasture butter comes in half pounds, and I had tons of dollar off a pack of butter coupons, so I saved 2 dollars on a pound of butter) raw butter is $12 a lb (I think it's a lb). I can't afford it. We eat a lot of butter (maybe a little more than a lb a week for two of us.) I do think that eating pastured butter is INCREDIBLY important, the nutrients are so much better and it's quite important. (Any undyed yellow butter however, is really good for you.)

[dogmom327]

It is possible to have raw cultured butter (and you can make it yourself from raw cream)--you just don't see it too often. To make it, you just culture raw cream (you can let it sit out as is described in Nourishing Traditions but you'll get a better/more consistent taste by using a known culture like Piima or Buttermilk). $11 lb. is pretty crazy for butter though. I know a co-op I belong to is getting butter from mostly pastured cows (we do the best we can on that one) and we are all anxiously waiting a few more weeks for the butter from the cows grazing on fresh spring grass--the yummiest time of year

[Koalamom]

I see you are from NY state. I used to live there and got raw pastured butter for $7 lb and I found the source on realmilk.com. The area is east of rochester.

[elizawill]

do you have a food processor? just make it yourself. it's so easy & would be cheaper!

[avendesora]

Here raw butter is $15/lb. yikes! So instead we enjoy Kerrygold butter at $2.69/8 oz. And feel 'good enough' about it. We do drink raw milk.

[Faliciagayle]

Hum. We are part of a dairy coop. The farm is in PA and we get it delivered here to NY. I just checked again and the butter is cultured and definitely $11/pound. Rochester is pretty far... but I'll check. Our group isn't officially part of WAP but there is TONS of overlap between members.

Kerrygold is available at TJs and we buy that often.

HVBO is so freaking expensive, if I can get a whole food source instead of a supplement I'd rather do that. (though I know HVBO is more concentrated, etc, I can't justify the expense to DH)

[Faliciagayle]

And cooking wise, is there a preference for raw or cultured?

does cultured butter have the same "cheesy" smell that raw does? Kind of a turn off

[Magelet]

I don't think cultured smells cheesy persay, however it definitely smells and tastes different. Ours is not a very strong taste though, and was easy to get used to.

Personally, I'd say use the cheaper one for cooking. (probably that would be cultured). why waste the horribly expensive raw if your heating it anyways?

[Brown Lioness]

Right now, i just use my raw butter to put on top of stuff (i dont cook with raw butter, its too precious to me lol) and then Kerry Gold's butter to cook with. Hubby prefers Kerry Gold to the raw butter because he doesnt like the cheesy smell and twang that the raw butter has. We're about to move to Texas and im thinking im gonna have to start making my own raw butter, which is fine as it lasts a long while since im the only one eating it, but ive havent really dabbled in butter making as of yet since my farmer offers it in 1 lb tubs lol.

But yea, i havent ventured into the cultured butter thing yet, tho it sounds really good. I really love me some butter, so i guess i should try it out, ya know?

Im like you tho, i dont have a lot of room for hoarding butter, so i have to buy a little bit, maybe freeze a package or two and then use that up. Hopefully, after the move, i will be able to purchase another freezer to remedy that.