But what makes it "Irish butter"?
It comes from Ireland.
By "Greek yogurt" do you mean Greek-style yogurt, or yogurt imported from Greece? I'm thinking you mean
"Greek-style." "Irish butter" does not have ameaning like that, it just means butter from Ireland.
As for the question "what makes Irish butter better I don't know, but it sure is.
Possible what makes everything in Ireland better.

Sometimes it's the breed of cows. Sometimes it's the feed. And I think a lot of Irish butter is cultured, which is better for table butter, though people here have said it's not as good to cook with.

I think it's the fat content that is different Christine. I just wondered if those who had first-hand experience might have an opinion from what they've tasted and cooked.

Not good to cook with? Because it doesn't behave in a manner with which they're familiar? That would make sense.

Here's what it says on the Kerrygold site:

In Ireland, cows roam free in fresh air and graze in lush pastures of green grass. From this benign environment and extraordinary diet comes luscious milk so rich in beta-carotene, it can turn butter and cheese into gold. The distinctive natural color and exceptionally creamy flavor distinguishes Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter and cheeses from other premium brands. Kerrygold dairy products are made exclusively from the milk of grass-fed cows that are free of growth hormones.

I've not used Kerrygold but have used Plugra. I think the difference between KG/Plugra and traditional LOL butter is the fat content. I'm sure the breed of cow makes a difference. I know Jerseys produce rich milk. I don't care though....it's SO good!

There's nothing wrong with cooking with it, if you don't mind your arteries hardening! You can tell the difference in the finished product. It's great for baking and excellent for finishing sauces. It's my preferred go to butter but I have to ration it now, since TJs stopped carrying it.

Ah ha! So it'd be good in say, a risotto (with the parmesan at the end) or a traditional chicken piccata's butter sauce. Ok then. Oooo, my favorite appetizer, Marinated Shrimp with Champagne Beurre Blanc. That would be awesome! I may try it on toast like he was or even cook a little. Thanks for the info!

I don't use a lot of butter, but the very best tasting I ever had was from Israel. It's also very white. I wonder what kind of cows they had.

Hm..fat content vs water content....I get so confused. I thought european butters had less water content.....like per stick of american butter its 96% butter and 4% water vs. 98% butter for european style - which would mean it has more fat content I suppose? Is better for baking.

How would the culturing differ?

plllog.... wait for it....kosher cows. LOLOL

loves2cook, ya beat me to it!

This is an interesting conversation. So, doncha think it's a matter of taste? They sell Irish and other interesting kinds of butter locally but I never saw any point in spending twice or more on butter just because it had a different label.

I'm curious now though, and one of these days I'll do a taste test. I wonder though if it isn't more of a matter of what you're used to.

When I went to Switzerland a few years ago I brought back a bunch of Swiss chocolate. Best in the world, right? After eating enough of it, I came to the conclusion that I like Hershey's better. Totally unexpected and not biased because it's American vs Foreign. I expected to like Swiss better. So... like I said, maybe it's what you're used to.

Don't know about Irish butter; but I do know that there's a large taste difference between regular store butter & organic butters. Since I assume the taste difference comes from the cows' food...makes sense that Irish butter would taste different. Preference, however, is personal IMO.

I went on a Plugra kick a few years ago. It's good stuff for baking & sauces. But, it's not certified free of growth hormones & since we eliminated those from our dairy products...no more Plugra here.

/tricia

I don't know if it's good for cooking or not. It tastes so good just spread on crackers, that we never had any of it left for cooking. I really wanted to cook with it, but I just didn't have the will power. I had to quit buying the stuff because I kept eating too much butter and crackers.

:-P That's me getting the butter taste out of my mouth. I just taste tested Kerrygold and Organic Valley cultured butter (they were in my fridge). I'm not particularly impressed with either, actually. Both are good quality. The Kerrygold is very salty, but under the salt flavor it just tastes like good butter, not special.

I think Tricia has a point. I usually buy organic butter from grass fed cows, so there isn't that big a flavor difference between the American and Irish. They might even use the same breeds.

The cultured sweet butter tastes a bit tangy, like buttermilk or yoghurt, but basically just butter. Not special.

The very best American butter I've had for table butter is Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery's cultured butter. Which they almost never have at my local store, but I'm glad I looked them up (they recently changed the name a little) because they now ship to individuals! Yeah! I use so little butter ... but it might be worth it.

Maybe they have kosher cows?

Last week, a friend and I had a butter tasting....actually It was a week ago yesterday.
He is a man the age of my son who has lead a deprived life ( just kidding!) and loves good food but has a wife who would happily live on cottage cheese and bags of lettuce, before her workout....So we have become "eatin' friends"
We talked about butter because his work ( he's a stock broker) takes him to many places.
I had 3 loaves of different fresh bread and he had, Kerry Gold, Plugra, some English butter and the local butter from the Amish farmers...I had the "supermarket $2.00 a pound special".
After a few glasses of wine and parts of all 3 loaves, we decided that the Amish was best....but pretty well equal to the French stuff.
Perhaps I am the only one who knows butter as a food group?...Who says to friends..."Come on over, we're eating butter!"

As to the difference? Not sure about fat content...because from what I know its' the milk solids that give butter it's flavor....so higher fat content equals less milk solids to give flavor???
Not sure I understand...but do know that clarified butter tastes pretty much like vegetable oil.
Linda C

It is my understanding that most European butters are not only slightly higher in fat content, but they are also mostly "cultured" butter, or butter made from cream that has been fermented, so it gives a fuller flavor and texture. That fermentation can be from bacteria introduced into the cream, which is then made into butter, or by adding the bacteria to the already made butter.

Annie

Irish Whiskey !!!
Lou

The Irish butter most people know is Kerrygold but there are other butters. And of course, from other countries too.

The cow might matter, but it's hard to separate the cow from the feed. In the US, we feed them corn and silage. Cows cannot digest corn and were not made to eat it. If the cow eats grass, the milk and the meat will taste very different. The meat may not have as much fat, but it's actually not as bad for your arteries as the corn fat.

In Argentina, the cows mostly eat grass. I don't think I've ever had ice cream as good, but for their lives they cannot make decent cheese.

So I think that's the second thing. The knowledge of how to make good butter! Culturing it essentially means making something like yogurt and then churning that, as opposed to fresh milk. It gives the butter a tart edge.

But most important is the butter fat content. Much European butter has a higher butterfat content and less water than US butter. So you combine the cows, the diet, the culturing, and the fat content, and you get a different butter entirely. France has some magnificent butters.

Having less water means that if you're making something like puff pastry, you get less steam so you need to adjust your recipe. But for most cooking purposes, I don't think people will know. If the butter is a central ingredient tho, like for buttercream, then it's important to use a good butter.

And for chocolate, it's always important to use a good one. Hersheys? No-o-o-o-o-o.

That Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery Butter is awesome stuff, too. Never used it for cooking either --- just spread it on crackers and ate it.

I've tried Kerrygold and my opinion was "meh". I prefer our local butter.

Reading this forum prompted me to buy Kerrygold last week. I've about given up on sandwiches made with butter because, auggh, it gives me heartburn now. SHOCK, Kerrygold did not.

The first sandwich test - rather skimpy on the butter - no heartburn at all.

The second sandwich (different day) - normal amount - no heartburn.

3rd test- slathered it on. Had to do the acid test. Very slight bit of heartburn.

I'm a convert!

Wow, Iris, that's interesting! When I was in Ireland I found I could digest perfectly some things that usually give me trouble. It's the leprechauns....

The butter we had in Ireland was better than the Irish butter we get here (I've never seen any but Kerrygold here).
But except for the price, I'd buy Kerrygold all the time here. I think the big taste difference is with cold butter.

Linda, I just got the biggest grin. Come on over and taste butter! Sounds like fun.

Iris, no heartburn when eating cultured butter. Methinks I see a connection. Culturing must be the difference.

After reading about Plugra on the FF I bought some for the first time in a while and decided I liked it enough to buy regularly, using it only for table use because of the cost. Then, because of the talk about Irish butter, I bought some Kerrygold ($1 more per half pound than Plugra) and I don't like it as well. I haven't read the fat content or water content, but I'm sure both have to do with the fact that kept under the same conditions (in the fridge under a dome) the Plugra gets hard and the Kerrygold remains "spreadable".

Call me nuts, but I much prefer the really cold hard butter. Always have. Maybe the spreadability of the Kerrygold reminds me too much of the consistency of oleo. UGH!

Guess in order to do a taste test I'll have to sit down with a big spoonful of each. Reminds me of when Plugra first appeared in our stores here - it was with the speciality cheeses, which I assumed it was, without reading the label. I sliced a hunk off at home to eat with crackers and found my mistake. Good mistake. I liked the butter.

Kerrygold is available at one of our Costco stores, the one in the more upscale area (but not in the other store). I think it's 3 pounds for under $8, but I haven't splurged yet. Now I think I'll give it a try.

I have to take issue with Rosesinny's statements about feeding cows. Dairy cows don't eat corn....that's fed to beef cattle to fatten them up. Un the US dairy farmers feed their cows pasture during the summer and hay those grass acres and pack some alfalfa and clover into silage for thwe winter months. If a corn field has been hailed out they may even attempt to salvage what's left by putting it into the silo. But as a rule dairy cattle are not fed grain, and we don't turn the cows we milk into beef for the supermarket. The exception being at the end of a milking cow's life, it will perhaps get sold for hamburger or perhaps baloney....hence the term "baloney bull"....a bull that for some reason is not working out at a breeder.
And there is a difference in the taste of the milk from different breeds of milk cows. Aside from the difference in fat content, Jersey milk is different from holstein milk....unless the examples I have tasted were due to the difference in the grasses they were fed.
Linda

I looked at Plugra once but it had an extra ingredient it didn't need. Can't remember whether it was color or what - not that big a deal but I didn't like the idea of paying for some high price product and then have it have that so I passed.

I agree, the milk from a Jersey cow is much higher in butterfat than the milk from a Holstein. I don't notice a taste difference as much as a "mouth feel" difference, but Jersey and Guernsey milk is much different than the iconic Holstein stuff.

As for feeding dairy cows grain, every dairy I know feeds their cattle a ration of grain. It's not their only, or even their main food source, but they get it. Sometimes in the form of silage, corn which is chopped up leaves, stalks, ears and all, but mostly in the form of ground corn. The reason I'm given for the ration is that any additives can be added to the grain more easily than it can be added to hay or pasture, so if you want your cattle to eat their wormer or their selenium (something that's lacking here in Michigan, and I give the cows a mineral block so they lick that free choice), it goes into the ground corn which the cattle scarf down.

And, the reason for selenium is that some places lack that in the soil, so it's not present in the hay or grain. Lack of selenium causes cattle to abort or have dead calves, so it's an important additive for commercial dairies.

Annie

I am a retired dairywoman...

Linda is referring to "grass-fed/grazing" dairies only. There are purists who don't feed grain at all; however, even in the grazing dairies, most feed a small ration of grains.

Traditional dairies feed hay and a grain mix ration (never just corn) usually a cost-effective ration (meaning whatever is cheapest when the bulk feed is mixed...corn is the basis however). some that have a large enough land base also let the cows graze in season.

Confined cow dairies (say Ca.) never let the cows grazed and feed mixed rations year round. Some forage/hay and a grain mix but usually a TMR(total mixed ration:grain and hay combined).

I am not real sure where the idea that cows can't digest grains comes from. Back in the day before they were 'improved' to the point of giving so much milk, they could graze and I am sure they ate the seed heads of grass when it was mature.

A balance is what you strive for. A certain percentage of forage to grain ration.

I know this is way more than you wanted to know. But I am a little sensitive to misunderstanding our dairy cows and our milk supply. I am totally opposed to hormone supplements. I want everything as natural as possible.

I think its the Shamrocks they feed their cows that make it better!

Gldno1, thank you for clearing that up about cows not eating corn.

Many years ago, part of my 'chores' on a farm, were feeding the dairy cows their grain.

We ground it ourselves, and it did have corn in it.

I'm glad to know we weren't doing those poor cows any harm.
"Way back when".

Rusty

ATK's show just had a butter tasting. Didn't check the website to see all the brands but in the show the main guy chose Vermont butter cheese but the winner of the overall test was Lurpak, a Danish butter which is what I have bought before over Kerry gold. Kerry Gold was not shown or tested by the guy on the show though. They talked about european butters being made with cultured cream as discussed here and how it gives more flavor or tang. A French butter was part of the test, but apparently many thought its flavor was a little too much of a good thing.

Cattle are not meant to digest large amounts of grain, they are forage animals meant to eat grass and hay. As ruminants their digestive systems require that roughage.

Dairy cattle are not fed in the same manner as beef cattle because beef cattle are fed to be fat in the smallest amount of time possible.

Annie

I had never heard of Irish butter so of course I had to try some. I picked up a 1/2 lb of the Kerrygold butter. I took out the butter today because I had some fresh rolls and I was telling my Mom about the Irish butter thread. My Mom is not very adventurous when it comes to food so she made a face but agreed to try it. She ripped off a small piece of her roll and tried the butter. You should have seen her face. She said "this is what butter used to taste like 25 years ago."

And... get this "Your foodies are right about this one."

She calls you folks 'my foodies' how funny.

Kerrygold gets two thumbs up from us. I was also impressed that it was a bit softer than the Land O Lakes so it was actually spreadable right out of the fridge.