For our first wedding anniversary, Kevin and I received a fabulous antique Blow butter churn from my sister and her boyfriend. (Thank you Heather and Simon!!) We couldn’t have dreamed of a more wonderful gift. My sister bought the butter churn in England, and carried it all the way to New Zealand in her suitcase. After all the drama of bringing it here from the other side of the world, we were desperate for the butter churn to run perfectly. We have have been saving up the cream and waiting eagerly to give it a test run.
Blow butter churn
Yesterday was the big day. After thoroughly washing and drying the churn, I poured in about 2 quarts of cream. Then Kevin and I took turns cranking the handle. It seemed to be working! It was working! We were able to make much more butter much faster and more easily than we could when we were shaking the cream in a quart jar. Once we are milking our own cows, we hope we will be able to make many more batches of butter in our wonderful butter churn.
Full throttle
Delicious, raw butter
For me, churning butter brings back memories of helping my grandparents, who had a similar butter churn to this one. For Kevin, it is a new and miraculous experience that has become part of his life since moving to New Zealand. This butter churn is a beautiful old piece of machinery. We have it set out on a shelf in the kitchen so that we can admire it as we enjoy the fresh home-made butter on our morning toast.
Looks yummy! Especially over some warm sourdough toast! Its great to see old equipment like that churn being put to good use again..It seems so many people use it for decorating yet have no idea what it is they have…
Wow, that is a very cool piece of technology. I’ve spent alot of time in seondhand shops over the years and have never seen anything like that. Does anyone know if anything similar was ever available in NZ. I’ll have to ask the oldies what they used to use. I’m still with the jar shaking method.
I’ve been keeping a buyer’s eye out for a beauty just like your new churn. No luck yet, but I’m always on the lookout.
One of our great joys through the peak milk season almost underway here is the homemade ice cream one can make with fresh, raw 82% double cream from Bella and the happy grass-fed girls taking no drugs or milk-boosting hormones.
A dollop of raw honey and any number of tasty ingredients, though we heavily favor our own backstock of berries. Ice cream as health food. You gotta be kidding, right?
Neighbor Gisela also produces butter as part of her “inn on the farm” (Fereinwohnungen am Bauernhof). Overproducing against her quota and often needing to drop her milkfat levels to the preferred number (3.5%), she skims for butter and double cream production. We help out by pulling ten-to-twelve liters every couple-three days, and double-dipping when filling our liter bottles to maximize our cream take. no complaints here. I regularly enjoy the FINEST cream teas.
That’s good looking product in the churn. Regular “dead” (pasteurized) heavy cream butter from the market looks like a block of tinted paraffin alongside properly souring fresh raw butter. With the perfect dash of sea salt, it is utterly delectable on crunchy whole grain toast, pleasing first the nose, then the palate and later the bod.
I like the Germanism: Lebensmittel (literally translated, “life-means” or “life-medium”, but basically meaning “food” in an essential sense).
And a quick Kombucha update: the raw Rapadura produces a grayish beverage, but despite this aesthetic shift it remains fine stuff to both sets of tastebuds here.
Batch #1 was the raw honey attempt, which tasted very similar to a traditional local beverage called “Met”. Recognize the root of the English form there? Mead. Oh yes, we’re using Green Tea sans any “natural” aromas.
Batch #2 was a liter-and-a-half jar made with Rapadura, and with a hint of sweetness lingering, but delicious in that fizzing fermentation way of all the live products made from honey and freshly-pressed apples, grapes, et al.
Batch #3 is another liter-and-a-half jar of Rapadura product with an extra day under the linen. Perfect. The last overt, nagging hint of sweetness in perfect balance with the tang. I do believe I’ll get another cup right now… =]
Thanks for the comments! Good luck to Doug and Buttery in your search for butter churns. We had been on the lookout for a butter churn for a while, but hadn’t found any for sale. It seems really hard to find one here in New Zealand, though I know similar churns must have been available here at some stage. My grandparents had one!
My sister (who lives in the UK at the moment)found our butter churn on Ebay. She said she got the impression that a lot of collectors were bidding on them, and there was a fair bit of demand. At least once, she got snaked out of a purchase by another buyer, just as an auction was ending. I think we are very lucky to have such a sharp shopper in the family as my sister!
We are very much looking forward to milking our own cows and having abundant cream for more butter, icecream, and other delicious treats.
Hi Rebecca,
There is one very similar to yours on trademe. It’s a 4 litre jar. Do you know if there is a minimum amount of cream that can be used in that size jar (assuming yours is the same)?
Hi Buttery,
I was just talking to Becky about the butter churn, and she thinks that the one on Trademe is like her grandparents’ butter churn.
She estimates that you would need at least a litre of cream.
Ours is a “3 imperial quarts” version and 2 litres is the max that we would try.
You might notice that the rivets that fix the turning mechanism to the lid represent the weak point of the design. Trying to make too much butter at once will stress the rivets as the butter separates and turning becomes more difficult.
We’re considering reinforcement options for the contact points on the lid with the turning mechanism. We feel that even making a small amount of butter at a time puts quite a bit of stress on the contacts. It’s going well for now, but we want to keep it that way.
Best,
Kevin
P.S. Good luck on that auction!
Doing a search for ‘butter churn’ on eBay turns up a number of antique churns similar to the one Kevin & Rebecca are using.
New ones can be purchased online from places like Lehman’s & Wise Men Trading as well.
In the U.S. there are a few options for buying new butter churns. We have fewer options out here on the edge of empire.
For people in America, the Tamarack is the one I’d go with:
http://www.wisementrading.com/butterchurns.htm
It looks like they’ll send it to NZ, if someone was prepared to pay.
Thanks Kevin. I get my cream in 600 ml lots so that churn might be too big. It’s getting kind of pricey too, although I’m sure I’ll regret not buying it!
Hi there – what an absolutely awesome butter churn! Such a brilliant gift – can they get us one too please 😉 hehe I’ve had such a good time noseying through you website – thanks so much. My husband and I are moving onto a 22 acre farm next weekend – we can’t wait! It’s horribly overgrown but it’ll be wonderful hard work. I’ll definitely be saving your site and visiting regularly. Thanks again! We’ll be using your shampoo and toothpaste recipes 🙂 YAY!
Hi Saffron,
Good luck with your move to the farm next weekend. I hope you’ll love your new home, and enjoy the process of getting the place sorted out.
Best,
Rebecca
Great to see your results – looks yummy!
I can’t see why you two couldn’t contact Bob Corker at Koanga Gardens and suggest to him if there is anyone around who can make them to sell.
Cheers,
Christopher.
Hi Christopher,
That’s a good idea about contacting Koanga Gardens. Might be worth a try!
Thanks,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Have you tried making any cultured butter?
cheers!
t
Hi Tochigi,
We haven’t tried making cultured butter, though we might be curious to give it a go some time. Do you have any tips? A recipe? Do you have to use some particular kind of culture? Basically, I’m just sticking to familiar ground by making the same kind of butter my grandparents used to make. It’s easy and I already knew how to do it. Still, we love to try something different.
Thanks for your interest,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
I asked about it because I have eaten commercially made cultured butter and it is great (but super-expensive in Japan!).
From that font of reliable information 😉 Wikipedia:
So, since you are lucky enough to be using raw cream, you could give it a try…
Sorry I can’t offer any better tips.
cheers!
Thanks for that, Tochigi. Perhaps we’ll give it a go. . . though after the recent quark experiment (I’m about to post about this!), I’m not sure what to expect when we leave our dairy to sour naturally around here! We’ll be sure to write about any attempts at cultured butter.
Best,
Rebecca
I have a butter churn just like the one you have. Found it in my mothers garage when she passed in 97. Can anyone give me a price on it’s value? Have not esed it yet. Also have a butter slicer and a wooden butter scraper.
I am looking for a butter churn, can you help me?
Thanks
Boaz