real and fresh buttermilk?

All this Southern/Texas boy can seem to find is the watery Dean's Lowfat kind everywhere, which I find neither drinkable or of much use in baking, cheesemaking, and dredging for frying. I just had some Dean's in the classic Southern crumbled cornbread and buttermilk. Argh!

Does anyone know where I can get some real buttermilk?

Wade

I know a market where there's an Amish farmer who keeps a big metal tin of fresh buttermilk on hand and sells it to you by the glass.

Unfortunately it's in Cleveland.

Hi,

I remember one snowy night driving along North Avenue having a good natured argument with RST regarding buttermilk. He was surprised there was no butter in buttermilk due to the fact all the cream/fat is separated out to make butter. It is a pretty thin liquid.

I just found this link, which advises 'true' buttermilk is evaporated and used in production baking. What we buy today is a cultured buttermilk product.

Maybe if you read this information, then please advise what it is you are really looking for. I happen to like Buttermilk, or what I supposed is buttermilk, so I would be interested to try what you consider is a better product.

Wade,

A couple years ago, I ran into the same issue when I wanted to brine some chicken in buttermilk to fry up later. I only found "low fat" buttermilk in the stores. Not just Jewel, but every freaking store in the whole area only carried "low fat".

After doing a bit of research (C2's links above provide good info), I learned that all commercially available buttermilk is not "real" but rather cultured from low-fat milk. It is my guess that dairy distributors began to label it "low fat" to aid sales.

"Real" buttermilk, that is, buttermilk that is created as the by-product of butter production, will be hard to come by unless you visit a dairy farm.

It is my understanding that the cultured "low fat" variety is the same product that has been on grocery store shelves for decades and only recently been changed to a "low fat" label. I've used it and not been disappointed in the results.

I wish I could be more help, but I doubt you'll find non-cultured buttermilk on grocery shelves.

Best,
Michael / EC

I did a search for "real buttermilk" and turned up this, which says that it's "the first real buttermilk available to consumers in 50 years." What it actually seems to be is the same powdered stuff used commercially as mentioned in Cathy's post.

How interesting that something so basic and American should be completely unavailable except to dairy farmers themselves today.

Hi,

I use that product MikeG links to for spontaneously making Irish soda bread. I have tasted it to find it similar tasting to cultured Buttermilk I buy occasionally. We don't usually keep buttermilk, so this product does come in handy without any difference in the outcome or taste of the soda bread.

Regards,

There are two different approaches to this issue:

1) make your own butter and use the resulting buttermilk; or 2) if you're not satisfied with the cultured buttermilk on the market, modify it.

1. Making butter is pretty easy - to experiment, start with about a pint of heavy cream, with as low a level of pasteurization as you can get (raw if you know a friendly dairy farmer, but probably the best you can find easily will be HTST, which works pretty well. I'd avoid anything that's UHT or mentions carageenan or other stabilizers.) Then to be really authentic (as opposed to mass market butters these days), add lactic acid bacteria to the room-temp cream, and let it sit out overnight (covered) at room temperature. (Where do you get lactic acid bacteria, you might ask? Why from cultured buttermillk, of course! Why do you think those specific cultures are chosen to make cultured buttermilk?) Then whip it (I would use regular mixing/beating methods – e.g. the paddle attachment on a Kitchenaid stand mixer rather than a whisk, or maybe a food processor – unlike making whipped cream, incorporating air isn’t a priority here – it’s the effect on the milk protein structures). It’ll get frothy, then like whipped cream, then grainy, then finally you’ll have a mass of butter in real buttermilk. Neither the butter nor the buttermilk will last as long as commercial products, but both can be frozen for storage of more than a week or so. Expect the buttermilk’s consistency to be equal or slightly thinner than today’s commercial product. You may or may not be able to detect taste differences between commercial and your own, and if you do, it’s a toss-up re: which you’ll prefer if you do a truly blind test. And, your homemade product will probably be between 1.5% - 2% butterfat – if you wanted to sell it commercially, you’d have to label it “Lowfat buttermilk” – unless you went back and added cream to raise it to 3.5% butterfat. But then it wouldn’t be an “authentic” buttermilk. (Buttermilk falls under the same labeling rules as regular milk, despite the fact that regular milk fresh from the cow averages around 3.5% fat or so [varies by cow species], while naturally produced buttermilk averages much less fat, because so much of the milk’s fat has gone into the butter.)

BTW, if you don't want to throw out the butter as a by-product in your buttermilk production, it will help to knead the soft butter for a while to smooth it out more. Also an opportunity to add herbs and/or spices for a compound butter - but you might not want to cover the purity of your fresh butter's flavor.

2. Fluid dairy products are almost infinitely malleable. Want more fat in your buttermilk? Add cream. Want more viscosity? Add cream, sour cream, or non-fat dry milk powder (aka “instant milk”). Want it tangier? Add a little yogurt and let it sit at around 105°. Or just concentrate it by adding the powdered stuff.

But to address your comments on commercial products, and those of one manufacturer in particular … I know when I was Marketing Director at Dean Foods throughout most of the 1980s, we thought most of our plants made damn fine – and way underappreciated – buttermilk – especially at the Chemung plant (just west of Harvard IL) – which is where most of the Chicago-area product comes from. [I can’t speak to any changes that may have been made since the Texans took over, but I’d be surprised if they changed much of the buttermilk equipment at the Chemung plant.] Most commercial buttermilks these days are pretty good, and reasonably close to pre-WWII buttermilk. More importantly, virtually all recipes calling for buttermilk developed since WWII were developed using cultured lowfat buttermilk, since that’s the only stuff supermarkets commonly stock.

Just my 2¢ worth.

Most commercial buttermilks these days are pretty good, and reasonably close to pre-WWII buttermilk.

What I am about to offer is likely tangential to the conversation, but what else is new?

About 5 years ago or so, the President of Oberweis Dairy was the guest lecturer at Culinary Historians. Pre-WW2 milk production was done in batches. The advent of continuous flow production was a technological advance brought on by the demands of the war effort. Initially it was for airplane fuel but the concept and ideas trickled down to all areas of production, including milk.

Pre-WW2 separating cream from milk was done in a centrifuge using cold milk. Post WW2, they found by heating milk to 120 degrees the cream separated from the milk more efficiently and completely. Oberweis Dairy, at least several years ago, continues to use the cold method of separation allowing their skim milk to seem richer and not the blueish color of standard skim milk.

Now I am thinking out loud, is skim milk really a more genuine buttermilk product than cultured buttermilk? It's what's left after the cream/fat has been removed and it certainly is a thinnish liquid.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:Pre-WW2 milk production was done in batches. The advent of continuous flow production was a technological advance brought on by the demands of the war effort. Initially it was for airplane fuel but the concept and ideas trickled down to all areas of production, including milk.

True for regular fluid milks - at least all the plants I've been in. Buttermilk is still produced in batches - it's held in buttermilk tanks for several hours for the cultures to mature.

Cathy2 wrote:Now I am thinking out loud, is skim milk really a more genuine buttermilk product than cultured buttermilk? It's what's left after the cream/fat has been removed and it certainly is a thinnish liquid.

The leftover from classical buttermaking has some cultures which affect taste and viscosity, which is why the supermarket buttermilks have those cultures added. One of the key things the cultures do to the flavors is to produce diacetyl, a naturally-ocurring key component of butter's flavor (and often chemically isolated to make "butter-flavored" products).

Cathy2 wrote:Now I am thinking out loud, is skim milk really a more genuine buttermilk product than cultured buttermilk? It's what's left after the cream/fat has been removed and it certainly is a thinnish liquid.

I remember being surprised recently to read/hear somewhere (mebbe Alton Brown?) that ALL modern commercial milk is skimmed in processing and then the desired amount of butterfat is added back to allow precise control over percentages.

BTW, thanks for what is a very interesting & informative exchange. Now I'm going to have to start making sure my buttermilk is from Chemung!

Ralpho wrote:I remember being surprised recently to read/hear somewhere (mebbe Alton Brown?) that ALL modern commercial milk is skimmed in processing and then the desired amount of butterfat is added back to allow precise control over percentages.

Once they add the fat back, then it is homogenized so that fat is evenly distributed. I was in kindergarten living in Massachusetts, the last time I saw milk with a ring of cream at the top. For my parents, it was an every day deal.

nr706 wrote:The leftover from classical buttermaking has some cultures which affect taste and viscosity, which is why the supermarket buttermilks have those cultures added. One of the key things the cultures do to the flavors is to produce diacetyl, a naturally-ocurring key component of butter's flavor (and often chemically isolated to make "butter-flavored" products).

When buttermilk was made the old fashioned way, rather introducing cultures like they do today, did they simply keep a small amount of buttermilk from an earlier batch as a starter for the next? I imagine another reason modern producers add cultures, rather than keep some from the last batch, is to maintain flavor and composition regularity. Am I on track?

Regards,

Ralpho wrote:I remember being surprised recently to read/hear somewhere (mebbe Alton Brown?) that ALL modern commercial milk is skimmed in processing and then the desired amount of butterfat is added back to allow precise control over percentages.

I can confirm this. Milk coming in from different herds, or the same herd at different times of the year can have varying butterfat content; this is the process used to ensure consistent product at the grocery shelf level.

Cathy2 wrote:

nr706 wrote:The leftover from classical buttermaking has some cultures which affect taste and viscosity, which is why the supermarket buttermilks have those cultures added. One of the key things the cultures do to the flavors is to produce diacetyl, a naturally-ocurring key component of butter's flavor (and often chemically isolated to make "butter-flavored" products).

When buttermilk was made the old fashioned way, rather introducing cultures like they do today, did they simply keep a small amount of buttermilk from an earlier batch as a starter for the next? I imagine another reason modern producers add cultures, rather than keep some from the last batch, is to maintain flavor and composition regularity. Am I on track?

Regards,

Yes. In the old days, they didn't need a starter culture, it was the bacteria floating around in the air that cultured the cream. Since cultures can mutate a bit in each batch, it's not really practical to save a bit to use it as a starter for the next batch. At home, it'll work for a batch or two, but fresh cultures are pretty cheap, so commercially-made products use fresh cultures. One of the biggest makers of commercial cultures is here.

edited to reflect what I meant but better expressed by jlawrence01

I can confirm this. Milk coming in from diffrent herds at different times of the year can have varying butterfat content; this is the process used to ensure consistent product at the grocery shelf level.

Milk coming from the SAME herd can vary by the time of the year, especially if the farmer has cows of various breeds.

Also, do realize that when a dairy picks up milk, there are few herds that can fill up an entire milk truck. Generally, a driver will be picking up milk from 10-20 different herds per truck load.

nr706 wrote:There are two different approaches to this issue:

1) make your own butter and use the resulting buttermilk; or 2) if you're not satisfied with the cultured buttermilk on the market, modify it.

1. Making butter is pretty easy - to experiment, start with about a pint of heavy cream, with as low a level of pasteurization as you can get (raw if you know a friendly dairy farmer, but probably the best you can find easily will be HTST, which works pretty well. I'd avoid anything that's UHT or mentions carageenan or other stabilizers.) Then to be really authentic (as opposed to mass market butters these days), add lactic acid bacteria to the room-temp cream, and let it sit out overnight (covered) at room temperature. (Where do you get lactic acid bacteria, you might ask? Why from cultured buttermillk, of course! Why do you think those specific cultures are chosen to make cultured buttermilk?) Then whip it (I would use regular mixing/beating methods – e.g. the paddle attachment on a Kitchenaid stand mixer rather than a whisk, or maybe a food processor – unlike making whipped cream, incorporating air isn’t a priority here – it’s the effect on the milk protein structures). It’ll get frothy, then like whipped cream, then grainy, then finally you’ll have a mass of butter in real buttermilk.

"Buttermilk" would then not be very different from a whipped/stired cultured yogurt. I've substituted homemade yogurt* thinned with water and stirred. The thinning down would, I suppose, dilute the butterfat content to approximate buttermilk in which the butter has been removed post churning.

*2 cups whole milk - bring to a boil, cool, stir in 2 heaped tablespoons of Dannon yogurt (I prefer this over Stonyfield 'starter') and place in a warm spot (I use my oven which stays warm due to the pilot) for 6 -8 hours (overnight) and then refrigerate for 4-6 hours. If you prefer a more sour product, keep it in a warmer place for longer.

sazerac wrote:"Buttermilk" would then not be very different from a whipped/stired cultured yogurt. I've substituted homemade yogurt* thinned with water and stirred. The thinning down would, I suppose, dilute the butterfat content to approximate buttermilk in which the butter has been removed post churning.

*2 cups whole milk - bring to a boil, cool, stir in 2 heaped tablespoons of Dannon yogurt (I prefer this over Stonyfield 'starter') and place in a warm spot (I use my oven which stays warm due to the pilot) for 6 -8 hours (overnight) and then refrigerate for 4-6 hours. If you prefer a more sour product, keep it in a warmer place for longer.

True, except the cultures are a little different. If you use yogurt cultures, you've made "Bulgarian buttermilk."

BTW, in yogurt making, you don't need to boil the milk - bringing it to a temp of 180° - 185° will kill off any unwanted little buggers.

nr706 wrote:True, except the cultures are a little different. If you use yogurt cultures, you've made "Bulgarian buttermilk."

BTW, in yogurt making, you don't need to boil the milk - bringing it to a temp of 180° - 185° will kill off any unwanted little buggers.

What cultures are used to make buttermilk? In the earlier post you mention lactic acid bacteria. The Dannon 'starter' I prefer has lactobacillus acidophillus mentioned on the packaging while Stonyfield declares it has a mixture of five different bacteria.Could you please specify what is used for buttermilk. Thanks!
IIRC, my attempts to make yogurt with store bought buttermilk were not very successful - the 'yogurt' wouldn't 'set', I ended up with very liquid and spoiled milk. I assumed this was because the buttermilk sold does not contain live culture or it is not very active.

You are right on the milk heating for yogurt making.

sazerac wrote:What cultures are used to make buttermilk? In the earlier post you mention lactic acid bacteria. The Dannon 'starter' I prefer has lactobacillus acidophillus mentioned on the packaging while Stonyfield declares it has a mixture of five different bacteria.Could you please specify what is used for buttermilk. Thanks!
IIRC, my attempts to make yogurt with store bought buttermilk were not very successful - the 'yogurt' wouldn't 'set', I ended up with very liquid and spoiled milk. I assumed this was because the buttermilk sold does not contain live culture or it is not very active.

Buttermilk is made primarily using Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides; yogurt is primarily Lactbaccillus delbrueckii and Streptococcus salivarius (although frequently others are thrown in, especially acidophillus, as you note). The distinction in cultures is an important one, because yogurt cultures are thermophilic (i.e. heat-loving - they work best around 110° ± a few degrees), while buttermilk cultures are mesophilic - they like temperatures closer to room temp, say 72° or so.

Commercial buttermilk should have live cultures. But it's possible that if you followed standard yogurt-making procedures, you might have left the buttermilk cultures at the higher temp range for yogurt cultures, and killed a bunch of 'em off. Even if that wasn't the case, the nature of buttermilk cultures is such that they won't set firm like the yogurt cultures do - at best you'll get a thickened liquid, like commercial buttermilk. (Although you could always then throw in a little rennet to firm up the protein structure.)

FWIW, I once tried making a cheese using ryazhenka (see this thread - it's more like a thick buttermilk than a typical yogurt) but got a very low yield - maybe 4 oz. cheese out of 2 gal. milk (and about 2 gal. of whey).

nr706 wrote:

But to address your comments on commercial products, and those of one manufacturer in particular … I know when I was Marketing Director at Dean Foods throughout most of the 1980s, we thought most of our plants made damn fine – and way underappreciated – buttermilk

First, the apology: It's unlike me to make sweeping generalizations, which, alas, is what I did when I refered specifically to Dean's in my original post, when I really meant "mass-produced" buttermilk. I am truly sorry for singling out that one company. By way of explanation, I fell prey to using Dean's in the generic sense, in the same way that many folks use Xerox to refer to all photocopiers or that many Southerners use "Coke" to refer to ALL soft drinks ("Would you grab me a Coke? Make it a root beer."). About the only milk I find in my local Jewels is Dean's.

Thanks for the responses and explanations. It may be time to make some at home. I have these wonderful recollections of thick and curdy buttermilk, loaded with yellow flecks of butter . . . .

A related rant re: milk and cheese: Do you think that we'll ever get over the pasteurization hysteria in the U.S.?

Cheers,
Wade

Thanks for the responses and explanations. It may be time to make some at home. I have these wonderful recollections of thick and curdy buttermilk, loaded with yellow flecks of butter . . . .

I think you were treated to some interpretation of buttermilk, which isn't quite buttermilk by definition. I'd love to try what your memories suggest though!

A related rant re: milk and cheese: Do you think that we'll ever get over the pasteurization hysteria in the U.S.?

Pasteurization of milk resolved significant public health issues. It may make your cheese experiments a bit more challenging to conduct, but the result all the more precious.

(I hope you don't consider immunizations hysteria as well.)

Regards,

waderoberts wrote:First, the apology: It's unlike me to make sweeping generalizations, which, alas, is what I did when I refered specifically to Dean's in my original post, when I really meant "mass-produced" buttermilk. I am truly sorry for singling out that one company.

Very classy of you to say so. I don't feel any connection to the company now, since the Texans took over, moved the HQ to Dallas and let go all the key Illinois executives. They even killed the bird-on-the-mailbox.

waderoberts wrote:I have these wonderful recollections of thick and curdy buttermilk, loaded with yellow flecks of butter . . . .

If it had flecks of butter in it, whoever made it did an inefficient job of making butter (the goal is to get ALL the butter into the butter portion). I'll bet it was tasty, though.

waderoberts wrote:Do you think that we'll ever get over the pasteurization hysteria in the U.S.?

Not until we kill all the lawyers.

One hot summer day in a third floor apartment many years ago, I was whipping cream in my Osterizer for making chocolate pot de creme and the whipped cream separated. I realized what I had was butter and a very thin liquid that I surmised was buttermilk. I was fascinated but then disappointed in the flavor. I realize now, after reading everyone's posts, this was due to the lack of cultures.

I was at that Oberweis lecture, too! The ice cream was delicious! And, Mr. Oberweis was right, their product does not have the cooked taste that other dairy products have.

HI,

If you overwhip your cream into butter, by adding 1-2 tablespoons of additional cream will bring it back to whipping cream.

I've done it just to see if it works and it works!

Well, I suppose that this topic is just about done but I did want to add a little more...

When I first move to Sweden I was disappointed to not find anything labelled like "buttermilk" in the otherwise well-stocked dairy section. It's bad enough not being able to head to a local dive and order (buttermilk) fried chicken with (buttermilk) biscuits but now I can't even make my own? So, in desperation I one day tried a Swedish cultured milk product - filmjolk. It worked. In fact, quite well! So, I happily fried myself up fixes of pan-fried, buttermilk-soaked chicken whenever the urge hit (not to mention scones and biscuits).

Not long after than my ever-thoughtful grandmother sent me a copy of John Thorne's enjoyable book "Serious Pig" in which the author in one chapter goes through exactly the discussion and relavations that this thread has - shocked to notice only "cultured" buttermilk, childhood memories of another product, confusion as to what exactly buttermilk is, etc. John Thorne being John Thorne, he embarks on a home culturing experiment involving the mail-ordering of many, many different milk cultures from around the world. To my astonishment (and great satisfaction) Mr. Thorne even stumbles across the "fil" culture and even gives it glowing reviews for its use in baking!

What's my point? Hmmm... Maybe not too much more then to mention the book (surely this group of enlightened food experts has also read it?) and toot the horn of my country of residence (I can also still buy non-homogenized milk at the grocery store!)! There are many sub-species of fil available over here including one called "long fil" that makes long, thready drips (think: 2-year old with a headcold) when stirred.

One more side note (sorry if I'm repeating something already mentioned in the thread) - isn't it the culture in cultured buttermilk that has the tenderizing effect on chicken? Would you even get the same tenderizing effect with non-cultured buttermilk?

After reading Making Buttermilk, I suspect that what I so fondly remember and seek was clabbered and cultured whole milk buttermilk MIXED WITH old-fashioned buttermilk (the butter flecks).

There's a simple recipe for clabbering (Lord, I love that word) whole milk into fresh and cultured buttermilk. I'll try it this week. I particularly like the idea of scaring my colleagues with the tale of leaving milk out in a warm place for 24 hours.

Cheers,
Wade

O.K. Starting with the directions from the link in my previous post, I added 1 quart Dean's Lowfat Cultured Buttermilk to 1 gallon whole milk, mixed, and left on the kitchen counter. After several hours, the container was still cold and nothing much seemed to be happening, so I put the container in a lukewarm water bath for several hours. Before going to bed, I returned it to the counter. It was thicker in the morning, but I decided to let it clabber until I returned home from work. The milk had thickened nicely, so I placed the container in the refrigerator.

I awoke thirsty in the middle of the night, and poured myself a glass. It was damned delicious, but a little too thick to be truly drinkable, about the consistency of a thick pancake batter.

I remember my Lithuanian friend recollecting the buttermilk of her childhood, sometimes so thick that it was eaten with a spoon, so tonight I broke it into two batches. For drinking, I diluted one batch with Dean's buttermilk. I kept the other batch thick, to try spoon-eating. I figure that the thick buttermilk ought to be ideal for fried chicken and chicken-fried steak, which is next up on my cooking to-do list.



Dean's Lowfat Cultured Buttermilk



My diluted buttermilk for drinking

Cheers,
Wade

Hi,

Your experience somewhat parallels mine in making Creme Fraiche around Christmas.

Regards,