I find all real (as in just ground peanuts) peanut butter separates. I think if the jar is older the oil layer is thicker. I always stir it back in… As a kid I liked the dried out chunky stuff at the bottom of the huge containers my mom would get. Now not so much. I can still get freshly ground peanut butter at several semi-local healthfood stores.

I buy natural peanut butter with nothing added. It always separates and there is a label to this effect on the tub. It says to simply stir it in, which I do. Without reincorporating that oil the PNB is too solid to spread.

I only buy natural, nothing added pb. I store the new jar upside down for a while so when I open it, the oil isn't at the top. After I've opened it, I store it in the refer and upside down.

As the others have said, it sounds normal to me. A friend was just saying she got some no stirring required PB for her daughter, who lives on campus (university). It uses a half teaspoon of sugar per “serving” as a stabilizer. That's less than the truly sweetened peanutbutters, but eyebrow raising, to me. I never realized that the ”candy peanutbutter”, as we call it, was that way to prevent it from separating. I suppose with PBJ the extra sugar is just part of the fun? I only use PB in cooking, and only get the ones that are just peanuts.

That said, it takes time to separate that much! It sounds like the jars are sitting before you get them. The kinds I've used have clear jars, so you can see how much they've separated, and I can usually find one that's still intact.

When I was a kid, techinah (sesame butter) was hard to find, and the good stuff was in a can and impoted from Syria. It was always very separated, my mother poured off most of the oil, and it was just fine without it. Nowadays, there are dozens of choices, and I often just get whatever's convenient. Most is the same consistency as the kind with so much oil poured off, but some are actually pourable! Which I think means all that much more oil. So perhaps that's a different strain of sesame, or different growning conditions, or a manufacturing choice. And I'd think that might also apply to your peanut butter.

Was there a hard compacted layer at the bottom?

I buy mainly Trader Joe's organic creamy PB - ingredients list only peanuts and salt - and I do the same as Oly - store the jars upside down to make it a bit easier to mix, once opened. I do the same with tahini. And tho I do check the jars for the least amount of separation, TJ's moves their products pretty fast - faster than many regular stores, I think - so I don't think they sit around for long.

I do notice that some batches seem runnier than others, but they all thicken up after refrigerating.

When I buy natural PB, I stir in the oil really well and then refrigerate it so the oil stays put.

I have turned the jar upside down and left it like that. Of course, the oil migrates upwards, no matter which end of the jar is up.

I got accustomed to the nothing added peanut buttter decades ago and it is all that I ever buy or have bought since about the early 70s. So, I have experienced many, many jars of nothign but peanuts and salt peanut butter. I go through a jar pretty quickly. it is a breakfast and lunch staple. I never bother to put it in the fridge because it gets used so quickly and cold peanut butter is like cold choclolate or cold butter. It is best at room temp.

I have been buying a mix of one from the co op and/or from Wegmannns grocery. I dont think either of these are ones that I might consider to have set on a shelf too long. Both of these venues have quickly rotating product on the shelves and are very active stores.

In the past there were jars at times that were almost too dry and now I am seeing jars that have almost too much . Stirring it in makes the p butter pourable.

In case any of you are like me and want it to be bit less oil and more peanut. the napkin trick works. But, first pour off and save taht bit on the top for something else. That is too good to waste! At that point I will mix it all the way from the bottom of the jar.

We started with p butter like this way back in our "hippie" days, and that was a long time ago. Nothing beats good bread and peanut butter! It is my go to lunch now for decades.

i have heard some some talk about the oil in sesame butter being different due to a different variety of seed . I thought maybe there is something different about the p butter too. But is seems to be that all of the different brands that I am buying seem to have the same lot of oil on top and through out. I bought the Deaf Smith brand for decades but have not seen that one for a long time. That was hard core hippie stuff!

The local grocery stores stopped with the in store made p butter at least 25 years ago. Safeway used to have it and also the other large local chain. But not since this century. Safeway used to sell teh shop make one in little brown tubs.

That was back in the days when the stores also had bulk bins for everything from kitty litter to cereal. What a mess that was!

peanuts are oily....you are pouring off the peanut oil and leaving just peanut flour.

Ever make your own? Just put dry roasted peanuts into a blender and push the button. Add salt or sugar to taste. Or if you are a purist, buy raw peanuts, shell and roast and blend.

I did that once....just once, big job.

Draining the oil from all natural peanutbutter is like draining the liquor from fresh shucked oysters or the juice from strawberrys you have sliced and sugared. it's part of the whole.

I tend to agree - I have no issue with that peanut oil at all.

Perhaps try refrigerating. It's what works for me and others here. When it's runny at room temp., it's perfectly spreadable when cold, IMPE.

No, I just want some of the oil out of the p butter. I dont take it out so much that my p butter is dry. I just want it less oily . I will go through a jar of it in short order, so i just want to reduce the calorie load a bit. I know that it will solidify in the fridge, but I keep it in the pantry because I dont want it cold .

Peanut butter is a wonderful addition to so many thing! I love, love, love peanut butter!

I do not understand your love of peanut butter - perhaps you can explain it. I have not bought peanut butter since I was in my 20s and bought it at a health food store. I do not remember ever liking it, even then, although at one time I used to buy dry roasted peanuts to add to certain Chinese stir-fry dishes, but I quickly switched to cashews. I have only bought peanut oil once and got rid of it because of its flavor - I expected it to be neutral - it is not.

I do buy cashew butter and almond butter (but rarely), and perhaps these might work for you as substitutes.

I do not hate peanut butter or peanuts, but I do love cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, etc and therefore have no interest in peanuts. I think I was turned off by supermarket peanut butter from when I was a child, and I always felt sorry for children in my elementary school who had to eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

I have a somewhat similar experience to yours with tahini, which I store in the fridge after opening with the container upside down. When I open it, the oil is on top, and I stir it back in with a knife honing rod - wooden spoons would break.

Yes, tahini will still separate in the fridge too, while peanut butter doesn't do that. Perhaps its due to whole seeds being used in tahini? It's not as smooth as peanut butter, certainly.

Is it safe to keep natural peanut butter - or any peanut butter unrefrigerated after opening?

Perhaps try Trader Joe's brand, if it's available in your area, claudia? I don't find it to have what I consider excessive oil.

It does say to stir and refrigerate on the label tho...

Pure PB is fine unrefrigerated for awhile. It'll go rancid eventually, but before that are the bacteria and molds you can introduce while using it, and bits of crumbs or jam or other foods will exacerbate that. I rarely use PB, so keep an opened jar in the fridge. At the rate Claudia goes through it, even if she weren't scrupulously clean about it (which I'm not saying, only if), it's perfectly fine out, and would be even in my much warmer kitchen.

I've never refrigerated PNB and the labelling doesn't mention it. I buy 500 gr. tubs and they last several weeks.

Oh, Lars, so sorry that you dont like p butter! But if you dont like something, you just dont.

Hubs prefer almond butter.

At the rate that it gets used here, there is no need to put it in the fridge.

But I just dont remember if being so oily in the past. I was never able to actually pour it from the jar.

I saw some store brand tubs at the co op yesterday and they also had a very loose consistency. But my napkin trick works pretty well to fine tune the amount of oil and the consistency that I want.