butter help please

[faffa_70]

AmandaN I have used thickened cream (in fact 5 litres of it today!!) to make butter. The only thing I don't do is keep the butter milk as it has gelatines etc in it that make the thickened cream (so I have been told) but when you manage to get 5 litres of cream for nothing, throwing that buttermilk away doesn't hurt too much 

[cecilia]

Thanks so much for this thread.  I am sharing an issue that is worrying one of my customers.  Here's her comment to me:

I need to refine my butter making and would like to talk to someone who regularly makes butter - I want to get all the water out of it - I remember my mother using a muslin cloth on the butter to extract all the water but it doesn't seem to work so well for me.

Any hints or tips gratefully accepted.

[judydawn]

Has she seen Quirky Jo's butter making pictures Cecilia?   Jo goes on to make a spreadable butter there but the first step is for pure butter which may help your customer.

[cecilia]

Thanks so much, JD.  I sent her the link to the earlier postings in this thread.  I wish I had the experience to do better support Face to face.  I have always been happy enough with the butter I've made, but then it doesn't last long in our house.

[andiesenji]

Mashing it on a tilted board with butter "pats" or paddles is my method.  No cloth.  You don't want to use something that will absorb the water and return it to the butter as soon as it comes in contact with it. 

Without butter paddles, one can use a bench knife or scraper.  With this process, one puts the butter on the tilted board over the sink then presses it firmly into a solid mass
Next cut all the way through it in parallel cuts right down to the board and press it again, scrape it up and rotate it 90 degrees, cut again press, cut, rotate and so on.  This opens up the little pockets of water caught inside the butter.

Some people use a large butter board and a smaller cutting board to mash the butter mass. 
The most important thing is to have the board tilted so the water can drain away. 

The lady up the road who makes small batches of goat butter commercially uses the tempered glass cutting boards that have a textured surface and cuts and mashes the butter with dough scrapers like this one