Blog butter canning

You can buy commercially canned butter….. For a price.

Currently butter is going for about $3.00 to $4.00 a pound depending on where you get it and live. I have seen store bought canned [tin can] butter for $12.00 for a 12 oz can OR put another way $1.00 an oz of butter.

There are basically 2 ‘kinds’ of butter salted and unsalted. Salted tastes better [to me] and it stores better. It will keep in the freezer for several years. In the refrigerator it will keep for up to a year. Either way refrigerator or freezer, butter takes up room and will have a shortened shelf life if the power goes out for extended periods.

So how can you have butter on hand for extended times, save space and money? By canning butter yourself at home. There are basically 2 ways of canning butter at home. The butter can be ‘tinned’ in a tin can like what you buy commercially. The tools to do this can run between 1 and 2 thousand dollars to get set to do. While it IS doable it is not cheap. The other container that is way more economical and easy to do at home and that is the Ball or Kerr glass jars such as you would can or bottle other foods in a pressure canner or cooker. Butter is one of the few items that I will can in either a hot water bath or the oven instead of the pressure cooker at my altitude of about 6,100 feet above sea level. Canned butter when stored in a cool dry and dark place will last for decades. A side historical note, recently [to me as I am sure the show was several years old already] Bizare foods with Andrew Zimmern [great show] anyway there was a segment on some butter that was found in a peat bog estimated to be 2,000 years old and it was still edible!

First wash your hands and jars. Put the lids in hot water, this softens the sealing compound so that it seals better.

The general procedure is cold pack the butter into pint jars leaving about a half inch of head space, wipe the rim of the jar to remove any errant butter which could interrupt the seal and then put the lid on hand tight. Set the filled jars into either the oven at 200 degree F or into a pot and fill with cool water up to the neck of the jar. Turn the heat up to medium and let the butter melt, slowly bring the temperature up to a simmer or if you have a candy thermometer about 200 degrees F until all of the butter is melted. You will notice in the melted butter a small layer of milk solids at the bottom of the jars. The milk solids add flavor. Wearing gloves because the jars are HOT, agitate the jars so that as the butter cools and gets firm the solids are mixed with the fat of the butter.

For hot packed butter, in a large pan [sized for the amount of butter you plan to can] genteelly melt the butter in your pan until it is all liquefied. The milk solids will fall the bottom of the pan, this is also how you ‘clarify’ butter. Your jars should be warming during this process so they won’t break from the temperature difference between the hot butter and cold jars. When ready, ladle the melted butter into the warm/hot jars leaving a half inch head space, wipe off the rim of the jar as above and place the lid, tightening hand tight.

If you plan to include the milk solids in this, you will have to stir the butter as you ladle it into the jars and agitate them as above. If on the other hand you plan to store just the clarified butter, you do not have to agitate the jars and can just leave the jars on the counter top to cool. While the jars are cooling you can take the melting pot and cook rice or whatever to make use of the residual butter and solids so that you don’t waste.
After the jars are cool, take a marking pen and label the jars with date processed and which type of butter is in it. Whole or clarified and salted V unsalted.

You can do the same thing with other animal fats. As an example, saving the pan drippings from bacon to flavor other foods.

Store it in cool dark place and it will most likely be shelf stable for many years. I still have a batch which was put up by me over 10 years ago. I used a jar this year that was as good as when I put it up. YMMV