Canning Butter and today on the homestead

I noticed in our area some butter has dropped in price. Time to reload and stock I guess :o)

I've shared this recipe for canning butter on my kitchen blog, and I don't think I've shared it here, but if I have...well, just go with the flow.

Be sure to use the appropriate safety measures including wearing long sleeves, gloves, an apron, and goggles. Boiling hot butter can cause very serious burns.

1. Use any butter that is on sale. Lesser quality butter requires more shaking (see #5 below), but the results are the same as with the expensive brands.

2. Heat pint jars in a 250 degree oven for 20 minutes, without rings or seals. One pound of butter slightly more than fills one pint jar, so if you melt 11 pounds of butter, heat 12 pint jars. A roasting pan works well for holding the pint jars while in the oven.

3. While the jars are heating, melt butter slowly until it comes to a slow boil. Using a large spatula, stir the bottom of the pot often to keep the butter from scorching. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes at least: a good simmer time will lessen the amount of shaking required (see #5 below). Place the lids in a small pot and bring to a boil, leaving the lids in simmering water until needed.

4. Stirring the melted butter from the bottom to the top with a soup ladle or small pot with a handle, pour the melted butter carefully into heated jars through a canning jar funnel. Leave 3/4" of head space in the jar, which allows room for the shaking process.

5. Carefully wipe off the top of the jars, then get a hot lid from the simmering water, add the lid and ring and tighten securely. Lids will seal as they cool. Once a few lids "ping," shake while the jars are still warm, but cool enough to handle easily, because the butter will separate and become foamy on top and white on the bottom.
In a few minutes, shake again, and repeat until the butter retains the same consistency throughout the jar.

6. At this point, while still slightly warm, put the jars into a refrigerator. While cooling and hardening, shake again, and the melted butter will then look like butter and become firm.
**This final shaking is very important! Check every 5 minutes and give the jars a little shake until they are hardened in the jar!**
Leave in the refrigerator for an hour.

7. Canned butter should store for three years or longer on a cool, dark shelf. [Original author note: It does last a long time. We have just used up the last of the butter we canned in 1999, and it was fine after five years.]
Canned butter does not "melt" again when opened, so it does not need to be refrigerated upon opening, provided it is used within a reasonable length of time

On the homestead today, I'm working on bread baking, sewing, schooling and later want to get back to the hinterlands of the property where I've moved our camper and do some more work.
The purpose -- well, Dewey feels I'm being 'silly' with a few things lately, so I'm moving off-grid here. At least a bit for a while. That is the direction I started out on years back, that is the direction I have always continued on, and that is the plan I figure to keep at.
I am a pretty open book, folks. I am what I am (just like in the Popeye Movie) and I don't change. I may be wrong in a lot of things, but I don't back down on a challenge and I don't side-step my opinion or alter my statements to please. I stay open minded to a point, (well, unless you use ignorance and stupidity to argue a point with me) but I haven't come to my decisions lightly and without prayer, so I often see no point in changing them. I'm hardly one to candy-coat anything.

So, I don't appreciate being considered "silly" and while I don't carry a grudge for long (usually), I do carry the blood of several stubborn nations in my history. I'm over being "emotional" about Dewey thinking this has all been some breeze of silliness in my life. Time to prove him wrong andprove to myself I can do it.

Go ahead -- I expect some flaming mails on this one, especially from the Christian Army attacking my stand against my husband's views and all. See, that right there is what keeps me from Plain folks fellowship. I just don't have that meek spirit thing mastered. It kicks my stubborn behind every time.