My buttermilk experience had me a little frustrated but it turned out quite nice. I ordered the buttermilk culture from Amazon. There were five little packets and the instructions said to heat one quart of milk to 86º, sprinkle one packet of cultures over the milk, let it sit for a few minutes, stir it in and keep the milk in an insulated container for 12 – 24 hours, checking for results.
I wanted to use a half gallon of milk so I doubled the milk and the culture. At some point, I decided the milk was not going to stay warm enough in my kitchen because it was pretty chilly yesterday morning (45º outside) so I thought . . I can pour this milk into the pressure cooker and keep it on “warm” and that should do the trick. I did . . and after a few minutes decided to check the temp of the milk and it was up to 160º. I figured I had killed the cultures so I dumped the milk into a bowl, cooled it down to 86º and added two more packs of cultures.
Before I went to bed last night, the second cultures had been in there about 12 hours so I checked the milk and it looked like plain milk. Nothing appeared to be happening and I was pretty disappointed but I put the lid back on the Igloo and left it.
Buttermilk
This morning, I had perfect buttermilk! It’s hard to picture “good” buttermilk . . you really need to taste it. I drank a little — at room temp and without any salt added and it was amazing. Of course, I love buttermilk. For someone who doesn’t like buttermilk, this would be awful. Cold and with a little salt, this will be delicious.
Buttermilk
Maybe you can see how thick it is in the picture above. It’s hard to photograph and depict thickness of buttermilk . . but give me an “A” for effort, ok?
Buttermilk Pie
The real question is this: How will it work in a buttermilk pie?
Buttermilk Pie
The hard part now is waiting for it to cool.
Buttermilk Pie
For future batches of buttermilk, I can simply heat storebought milk up to 86º and add a little of the already made buttermilk that contains live cultures. For raw milk, the milk will be heated to 165º, held there or 15 seconds, cooled down to 86º and then a little of the leftover buttermilk will be added. We will always have fresh buttermilk on hand!
Jan Moorman says
Judy, have you started sprouting yet?
obed101 says
I meant to ask the name of your vacuum sealer in my last comment. Duh, I didn’t!
I have looked at a few but can’t decide what is good.
Dottie N. says
Oh my goodness – I was just thinking about buttermilk pie the other day – I always seem to crave it in the spring. I was wondering if I should “lick” my screen for a little taste :-).
Jan Moorman says
My gramma made sugar pie, sugar, milk and flour with butter and nutmeg on top. We always called it “spit” pie, cause when we asked why it tasted so good, she said it was because a gramma who really, really loved us, spit in it.
Pat says
Would love to have some good thick buttermilk nothing better. Give me some corn bread and thick buttermilk nothing better. What I get at the grocery is very thin not great buttermilk. I think my southern roots are showing.