It’s Real Butter
Have you ever eaten powdered butter? Not so great. I have powdered butter stored and I love it for baking but to eat, well, I’d rather not. As you know I am all about storing foods which bring comfort during a crisis. For me butter is one of those. While I don’t use lots of butter, in fact very little, when I make cornbread I have to have butter and honey! This is the real deal, pasteurized cream and salt, that’s it!
I took this canned butter to my food storage buddies at our meeting last week and everyone agreed they HAD to have some for their storage. It is really butter. It smells like butter, it tastes like butter, it spreads like butter and it melts like butter, Why? Because it is..butter.
Some of you have asked about canning your own butter. Please don’t. It is not safe and it doesn’t taste all that great.
The National Center for Home Food Preservation States:
Should I use directions for canning butter at home that I see on the Internet?
Indeed, there are some directions for ‘canning’ butter in circulation on the Internet. Most of what we have seen are not really canning, as they do not have Boiling Water or Pressure Canning processes applied to the filled jar. Jars are preheated, the butter is melted down and poured into the jars, and the lids are put on the jars. Some directions say to put the jars in the refrigerator as they re-harden, but to keep shaking them at regular intervals to keep the separating butter better mixed as it hardens. This is merely storing butter in canning jars, not ‘canning’. True home canning is when the food is heated enough to destroy or sufficiently acid enough to prevent growth of all spores of Clostridium botulinum (that causes botulism) and other pathogens during room temperature storage on the shelf.
Additionally, when you consider the economics of the process (energy costs involved with heating, cost of jars and lids, etc.), even if the butter is bought on sale, it may not be economically viable to prepare butter to store for years in this manner. Good quality butter is readily available at all times, if butter is needed for fresh use. If the concern is about emergency food supplies, there are dry forms of butter that can be purchased and stored, oils that can be used in an emergency, or commercially canned butter in tins (although we have only seen this for sale from other countries). Melted and re-hardened butter may not function the same as original butter in many types of baking anyway.
There are a few issues with the common directions circulating on the Internet at this time (Spring 2006):
- Physical safety and food quality: In the provided directions, the jars are preheated in an oven (dry-heat), which is not recommended for canning jars. Manufacturers of canning jars do not recommend baking or oven canning in the jars. It is very risky with regard to causing jar breakage. There is no guarantee that the jars heated in this dry manner are sufficiently heated to sterilize them, as we do not have data on sterilizing jar surfaces by this dry-heating method.
- The butter is not really being ‘canned’; it is simply being melted and put in canning jars, and covered with lids. Due to some heat present from the hot melted butters and preheated jars, some degree of vacuum is pulled on the lids to develop a seal. It rarely is as strong a vacuum as you obtain in jars sealed through heat processing. The practice in these ‘canned’ butter directions is referred to as ‘open-kettle’ canning in our terminology, which is really no canning at all, since the jar (with product in it) is not being heat processed before storage.
- Although mostly fat, butter is a low-acid food. Meat, vegetables, butter, cream, etc. are low-acid products that will support the outgrowth of C. botulinum and toxin formation in a sealed jar at room temperature. Low-acid products have to be pressure-canned by tested processes to be kept in a sealed jar at room temperature. It is not clear what the botulism risk is from such a high-fat product, but to store a low-acid moist food in a sealed jar at room temperature requires processing to destroy spores. A normal salted butter has about 16-17% water, some salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. Some butter-like spreads have varying amounts of water in them. We have no kind of database in the home canning/food processing arena to know what the microbiological concerns would be in a butter stored at room temperature in a sealed jar. In the absence of that, given that it is low-acid and that fats can protect spores from heat if they are in the product during a canning process, we cannot recommend storing butter produced by these methods under vacuum sealed conditions at room temperature.
- Some other directions do call for ‘canning’ the filled jars of butter in a dry oven. This also is not ‘canning’. There is not sufficient, research-based documentation to support that ‘canning’ any food in a dry oven as described on this web page or any page that proposes oven canning is even sufficient heating to destroy bacteria of concern, let alone enough to produce a proper seal with today’s home canning lids.
In conclusion, with no testing having been conducted to validate these methods, we would NOT recommend or endorse them as a safe home-canning process, let alone for storing butter at room temperature for an extended period. We do know that the methods given for preheating empty jars, or even filled jars, in a dry oven are not recommended by the jar manufacturers or by us for any food. Aside from the physical safety and quality issues, and the fact that it is not canning at all, if there happened to be spores of certain bacteria in there, these procedures will not destroy those spores for safe room temperature storage.
Now you have the facts. Please don’t can your own butter. Why take the risk when you can purchase some that is safe, preservative free, and tastes great.
I am so impressed I am now offering it on my web site. You know I have very little there, and nothing I wouldn’t use myself. To learn more or to purchase go to: http://totallyready.com/component/option,com_virtuemart/page,shop.browse/category_id,5/Itemid,1/
Please return here with your reviews once you try this great find. If you have already tried Red Feather Pure Creamery Butter, what did you think?
Here in my ward in Australia we buy this butter for storage – every word above about this butter is true – it is DELICIOUS !!! Enjoy it !
Great post – I totally agree about butter being an excellent comfort food!
Jeniw – I’m in Australia too, but cannot find where to buy tinned butter. Could you please share where you get it? Thanks!
KelG – in W.A. we get it in bulk through someone who organises this for our Stake.
You can order it on-line in Oz from here
http://www.boatharbourmarine.com.au/Tinned_Butter.aspx – try an internet search & see what you come up with. The Red Feather butter comes from NZ. Seems like those in the USA do better than us down under as canned cheese is almost impossible to get here but its made in this part of the world !
I have tried this butter too and agree that it is excellent! My family is storing some in our pantry! I can definitely recommend it to all of you.
What is the shelf-life on this butter?
My husband and I ran across this butter awhile ago, and we love it! According to the information on the tin, the shelf life is indefinate, although I don’t know how that can be possible. We just make sure that we date it and use the oldest first. This same company also does a canned cheese that isn’t too bad either. We have stored some of both and feel that it will be a great comfort food if the day came that we needed to live off of it! We highly recommend both products!
How much canned butter per person should we store?
Regarding butter in cans…you can can your own butter and it’s shelf life is about the same as crisco. All you need is to buy butter when you find it at a good price. Melt the butter down and pour it into pint size glass jars that are hot.
Once poured you need to seal the jar with the lid. Periodically shake the jar as it cools so the butter will be well blended.
Grace, this is what I was addressing with the article above. I have done lots of research on this over the last few months. I know people have stored butter they have “canned” for years but ALL the new testing has indicated that this is very dangerous. Please don’t do it. One of my friends did a case a while back and when she read the reports she dumped it. Please don’t take a chance.