Buttermilk is the by-product after you make butter and is nothing like the commercial stuff. No heating necessary for REAL buttermilk. It sounds like the Kentucky aunt may have made cultured buttermilk.

Cultured buttermilk is made by adding a culture starter to skim milk (from raw skim milk, commercial skim milk from the store, or reconstituted powdered milk can also be used).

You can pasteurize the milk for culturing - which is what the Kentucky aunt probably did if she used raw milk - but pasteurizing is unnecessary for store-bought milk or reconstituted powdered milk. If the raw milk is pasteurized, allow it to cool to 100-105-degrees F. and then add a starter or culture. If you don't pasteurize the milk, heat the milk to 100-105-degrees F., then add the starter.

I add either commercial buttermilk from the store or reconstituted powdered buttermilk for the culture. The simple recipe is: one quart milk (skim is preferred) plus 1/2 c. commercial buttermilk (or reconstituted powdered milk).

Stir the starter into the quart of warm milk and cover. Let stand in a warm place (at least 80-degrees F) until clabbered, about 12-18 hours. I place the mixture in my oven with the light on (as far from the light as possible - check the actual ambient temperature).

I place 1/2 c. buttermilk in a quart jar and then fill the jar with warm milk (100-105-degrees F). Place a plastic lid on the jar.

You can use 1/2-cup of this cultured homemade buttermilk as the starter for your next quart. Use the homemade cultured buttermilk within two weeks for optimum culturing (warm the 1/2 c. of starter to room temperature before adding it to the warmed milk). Buttermilk older than 2 weeks may not work well as a starter culture.

-Grainlady

To make real buttermilk, get a pint of heavy cream (heavy, not any other kind) put it in a quart jar with the lid screwed on tight, shake it vigorously back and forth for about 15 min. and you will have butter floating in milk. Strain out the butter and what's left, that's "buttermilk" but it tastes like skim milk, IMHO. I'm sure what your hubby wants is cultured buttermilk.

I agree, we often had buttermilk after we churned butter, it's simply the liquid left after the butter is ready.

I also think your husband is wanting cultured buttermilk.

Thanks, Grainlady for the instructions. I make my own yogurt and my own mozzarella and I was just thinking that I ought to be able to make my own buttermilk but hadn't done any search into the process. Elery loves buttermilk to drink, me not so much, but I do like it for baking.

annie

Way back when, butter was made from slightly soured milk...essentially milk with a "culture"....and the buttermilk from making cultured butter is lovely!
When I was a little girl, when milk was delivered by a horse drawn wagon (huge dairy, delivered with horses into the 1950's) the buttermilk was the by product of making butter....and actually had a few bits of butter floating in it....delicious!

I make mine from raw milk from my cow. I do not heat it. I do use some cultured buttermilk from the store. Then I can keep my own delicious culture going for about a month. Then I start again with a fresh culture.

I also have just let the raw milk clabber by leaving it in a stainless steel pot overnight. Blend the next morning and you have really old-fashioned clabbered milk. I love either.

Thank you so much everyone for your prompt information. DH says they had only whole milk (yes, we both remember the little amount of cream up at the top of the glass jugs)and his aunt didn't make butter. I'm going to make the cultured buttermilk like grainlady makes and we'll see if I can make some that tastes like his aunt's.

So, when baking with buttermilk, and you have to add the baking soda to the recipe, is that with the cultured buttermilk? I guess I never thought about buttermilk vs. cultured buttermilk. I'm trying to picture the carton when I buy it, but I haven't bought buttermilk in a long time, and don't remember what it says on the label. I usually buy the powdered buttermilk. I don't know if I'm phrasing my question clearly, but which form is it that used in baking and requires the baking soda?

Sally

sally2-

I think you may have it backwards.... It's the soda in a recipe that requires an acid ingredient to activate it, and buttermilk is often that ingredient. Other ingredients that have enough acid to activate the soda are: citrus, vinegar, sour milk, cranberries, rhubarb, apples, berries, apricots, honey, yogurt, sour cream, bananas (not over-ripe ones), molasses, cocoa...

Commercial buttermilk is cultured - that's why I can use it as the starter in milk to make cultured buttermilk. Powdered buttermilk is also cultured - and once again, the reason I can use the reconstituted powdered buttermilk as the starter. There are also naturally-occurring cultures in fresh buttermilk (the by-product after you churn butter) that make it acid enough.

Hope that makes sense.... ;-)

-Grainlady

Thanks again, grainlady, for answering a lot of questions for us. Have to admit that I hadn't thought of some of the questions yet, but I'm sure I would have somewhere down the road.