Churning

At my first visit today I spotted this domestic butter churn, Stamped on the glass is 'Blow Butter Churn 4/40 Made in England. It had just been bought on Ebay and it's new owner had spent a bit of time cleaning it up.

I said that I would be interested to try some butter made in that - "give me 10 minutes and you can have some" he said.

Three litres of double cream went in the jar and after 10 minutes of steady winding on the handle he was able to pour off just over a litre of buttermilk. He added a litre of water and worked the contents of the jar to get rid of as much of the remaining buttermilk as possible, the butter was washed twice more being worked and then drained. Each time the washing water got cleaner and the residue in the jar looked more like butter.

The 3 litres of cream produced about 2kg of butter + the buttermilk.

By half past 10 I was back in the office with my sample of butter and a loaf of thick sliced bread, mmmmmmmm