My daughter has one of these and it is a really nice way to keep butter. As much as I think that I dont want one more of anything in my house, I have seriously considered getting one of these. I may do that after these darned holidays have safely passed.

I have one from a friend in marble. It's nice having spreadable butter!

I used to have one, but it broke, and I never replaced it. We seldom use butter, or else I would have gotten another.

How does the butter not spoil if kept at room temperature?

Butter keeps fine at room temperature. How long depends on the room. We keep ours on the counter all the time. It easily lasts over a week most of the year. But we use a rectangular butter dish. I'm not clear how a block fits in a cylindrical pot. This is ours.

florauk, I've lived in Northwest Europe (not the UK) and have visited friends' homes in the UK. Your "room temperature" and North American room temperatures through the year are different.

Butter has very little moisture or solids in it so bacteria growth in butter is slow and the time before it goes rancid. Same reason dehydrated fruits don't rot sitting out for a while, but butter doesn't absorb moisture like dehydrated foods will so butter will last longer.

Our butter sits out until it's gone and know if it was in a jar that sealed out of direct light it woul last longer but a stick rarely lasts a week here.

Clarified butter or ghee is processed further removing all the moisture and solids, and in a jar light can't penetrate with a sealing lid it can last Many months to almost a year sitting out. Butter processed into ghee will last as long as any oil will last sitting out. Ghee is big in India and one forum had a guy state his ghee was good 20 years after it was canned but unconfirmed as factual.

I keep butter in a pottery butter crock all year round sitting on my counter. I hate hard butter. In the winter, sitting on the cold soapstone, the butter is semi-hard but spreadable and in the summer it's softer and easier to spread. At the rate we use butter, it's never out for more than four or five days. I've been doing this all my life with no repercussions.

Warm weather and a short heating season characterize where I live. The same, I suspect, as for martinca.

We too prefer unsalted butter. Butter left out melts into a near liquid and, as I recall from the last time it was done accidentally, partially separates. It's easy enough to take it out of the fridge in advance of wanting to spread it - 10 minutes seems to be enough time to soften it for easier use.

Im probably revealing terrible ignorance here, but what is the purpose of water in the bottom?

I keep butter in an old fashioned covered butter dish on the counter. I replenish it half a stick at a time. I use it for cooking and on the table, and the butter is used before it ever goes rancid.

Our expensive handmade stoneware French butter dish is in the back of a cabinet, and will go with the next clearing out. Using it involves: 1.) Leave butter out to soften when unpacking groceries. 2.) Mush a stick of butter into the cup. 3.) Fill the outer container with water. 4.) Invert butter into water. 5.) Change water daily, which involves taking out the wet butter dish and washing out the water cup. I used the French butter dish for a few weeks before I got tired of it. I did use the cup part for a while when our toothbrush holder broke, but it didn't really work well for that either.

floral, we keep ours on the counter year round as well. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one wondering about the round pot.

roxsol, isn't the climate where you live colder than the UK for much of the year?

Yes, Elm.

I live in North America and we keep our butter on the counter.

Why do you ask?

But judipup, Seems the water only needs changing when new stick of butter is added..and butter does not touch the water. I’m new to this crock, and perhaps not as hygeniclly minded, but seems you’re making too many steps. Sep 2, 3 and 4 are so negligble, and no need to wash the water container if it hasnt touchrd the butter. No. 5 isnt needed. I’m pointimg all this out not to start a debate, but so others aren't scared off of trying it .Not enough butter for a family, perhaps, but perfect for we two on toasts….Not for slathering a potato or cooking. And! Not to be forgotten: Cuteness Counts! 😁

FWIW, ambient temp. in our kitchen is around 80F (27C) for much of the year. I remember being surprised my aunt in Wisconsin kept hers out, and having it be spreadable was very convenient.

I don’t use a butter crock but this is how they work.

carol, my dad loved ice cold butter on some food. Toast and cream crackers. He would slice it like you would firm cheese.

He would then top it off with a dollop of jam or pickle.

I learned from a visiting English cousin to scrape the cold stick of butter with a knife to get something soft enough to spread.

I just use a saucer but have a nice Victorian milk glass butter dish picked up at a garage sale for $2 I could use if I wanted to go fancy.

The use of a french butter dish is based on the thermodynamics of evaporative cooling and thousands of years old using goat skins in the mid east to cool the contents inside a container. The container must be made of a porous material to allow a small amount of water to move to the outside and evaporate, and If the pottery or vessel isn't porous it won't work, so does yours work? The very earliest example of the evaporative cooling process would be sweat.

I wouldn't expect anyone without knowledge of thermodynamics to know these things, but if someone who claimed to have knowledge and tried to display it in the HVAC forum but knew nothing of evaporative cooling the person would be a pretender.

I think your weather in Alberta is considerably colder and longer so than in milder climates, including the UK. Yours was not a relevant comment to what I'd said.

kevin, I just use a plastic Glad container with a snap on lid that is the perfect size for a 454 gram block of butter.

The butter crocks are cute, though.

Goodness Elm!

I started my post off by addressing Floral. I wasn’t talking to you until you addressed me.

Who cares if it is relevant to your comment. I felt it was relevant. There are many folks in this conversation.

I keep my butter on the counter.

Sure. And your snow blower's gas tank full.

“Sure. And your snow blower's gas tank full.”

Elm, I’m not sure what you are talking about. I don’t own a snowblower, just a backpack leaf blower for the light stuff on the decks and porches and my husband uses a plow mounted on a quad for the driveway. We haven’t had to use the plow this year as we have had very little snow and it has been unusually warm this year, unfortunately. 🙁

martinca, I’m sorry that your thread has been hijacked. It is a shame.

I bought mine from a ceramic artist who made and sold them. She was the one who recommended changing the water often. The butter doesn't touch the water but the outside of the "butter dish" part does. So it gets handled, or at least dried off, frequently and then goes back into the water.

Martinca, you posted a screen shot rather than a link so the Amazon listing can't be accessed.

I'm assuming this works like the terracotta milk bottle coolers we used to use which worke by evaporation.

I remember the butter touching the water in the one I had, but maybe I was using it wrong.

It takes us about two months to use a stick of soft butter, and so we always keep it in the fridge now. I make toast mainly for sandwiches, and I put mustard and spicy mayo on the toast - never butter - but a friend from Holland uses butter on her sandwiches.

We use a lot of butter in our house and all sandwiches are buttered in the UK. There would be complaints if anyone was offered a sandwich without butter. At home we use at least 250gr (just over half a pound) a week between two of us for buttering bread and toast and for cooking.

I have the same one, called a butter bell from the shape of the inner butter dish. works great.

I received one as a gift. Same impression as Judipup. Too much trouble. Maybe OK for those who use very little butter but we go through butter pretty quickly. Mine ended up at the back of a high shelf after a trial run.

Butter stays on the counter here (Wisconsin) year round. It is spreadable for about 4 months of the year. Not spreadable w/o warming it up during the winter...it sits on the counter under a window. (A butter bell might be useful here for the couple of months in the summer to prevent the butter from getting too soft. But not worth the trouble to me.)

We also keep our butter out-actually on a dish in the bread box. We have a bread box because we had a dog who would steal bread and then one of our cats took up butter eating in her old age so the butter joined the bread and now we just keep the butter in the bread box since the dog passed some years ago but then so had the cat. I would put the butter in the fridge but DH wants it to be soft. I dont keep much out in the hot part of our summers. I dont butter sandwiches though my MIL would constantly bring that up as some sort of flaw. So dry she would say although I never made a sandwich for her so why did she care? We have an antique glass cheese keeper that works more or less on the same principle as a butter bell only it uses vinegar.

I have a bread box in Cathedral City (It came with the house), and I like it a lot. In addition to bread, I store onions and garlic in it, as I do not have a better place to store them. It is a very small kitchen.

Funny enough, I just came upon this article that contains butter storage advice from Land O'Lakes, a large dairy producer whose name I suspect all know. No, I didn't do a search with this as a result, I did truly stumble upon it while not looking for it.

For those who respect knowledgeable advice, it's time to put away your countertop butter holder:

Butter should be kept refrigerated

We live in Zone7. We keep our butter (unsalted) on the counter year-round.

Lola, do as you wish. Not everyone chooses to follow knowledgeable advice such as I shared. Why do you suppose Land O'Lakes would make the suggestion if there weren't valid reasons for doing so?

Of course Land O'Lakes is going to say "Keep butter in the frig", or the sky will fall! The simple reason for their bias to say out of court and avoid law suits filed by dopes who let it sit out over months and got sick.

Notice I said months, because estimates from unbiased professionals preforming controlled studies have concluded 50 days at 77 degrees as their estimate when you may get sick because of the fatty acids breaking down and going rancid, and not from bacterial contamination.

Samples had no growth of bacteria at 77 degrees, and Amazingly because of the composition of butter the tests actually showed antibacterial properties in samples inoculated with the top food borne bacteria's and had a significant reduction in bacteria population over time. They didn't grow and actually died.

The estimates on quality based on sensory tests started to slightly diminish after 7 days sitting out at 77 degrees and considered the "best by days" for quality only. Lowering the temperature to 59 degrees increased "best by days" to 17, and "you may get sick" days to 93.

The FDA recommends refrigeration of butter but also said it's safe at room temps and can be left out for a couple days, but if left out for several days it MAY go rancid. How much is several? Unbiased studies tell us, centuries of past practice tells us, and in Europe most leave butter out, (and think the USA is weird keeping it in the frig).

food-safety experts Don Schaffner, food microbiology professor at Rutgers University and Ben Chapman, professor at North Carolina State University said it's OK to let it sit out for a few weeks if it's salted.

There is so much more proof butter is safe sitting out so dig deeper than cherry picking articles from companies paranoid about being sued, and not what chicken little would say.

Exactly, kevin9408. We have never refrigerated butter (in a butter dish - the stuff still in the package stays in the fridge until we're ready to use it) in our house, in almost thirty years of marriage. It's never gone rancid, and it's never "melted" in the summer. It's never made us ill, either. And honestly - if it did go rancid, we wouldn't eat it. We aren't stupid.

I'll take my thirty years of direct experience over a company's lawyer-written "safety" guidelines that are there just to provide the company with "proof" that they "recommend" butter be stored in a fridge.