[00:01] has gotten completely out of control so I bought a lot of butter and asked the I bought a lot of butter and asked the question is expensive butter worth it specifically I have about 15 different Butters ranging from $128 per stick up
[00:14] to over $3 per stick and here are a couple of things I found out first the highest butterfat percentage is 85% while the lowest is 80% secondly The Salted Butters have different amounts of salt added the highest is Cary gold at
[00:30] 100 Mig of sodium per serving while the Danish crey had just 65 Mig per serving to white in color While others have a deeper yellow Hue and in a little sample test I found that some of these Butters definitely have unique Aromas so to get
[00:46] of a difference any of this actually makes we're first going to cover how is butter made we'll cover the basics of butter fat percentages salted versus unsalted butter American versus European style common added ingredients and I
[01:00] even tried making my own then once we have our head wrapped around the butter walk through these six flavor fundamentals of butter for example what does butter even taste like do certain butter varieties have unique Aromas why
[01:15] is some butter darker yellow and how does the texture of butter change based on the temperature and by the end of this video I promise you'll have all the information you need to make an informed and confident purchasing decision the
[01:27] next time you are in the butter aisle my brother recently moved into his first apartment so I got him some of my favorite cookware essentials from some of their best deals of the Year going on right now so let me show you
[01:40] what I got them to give you some ideas if you're looking for some cookware for yourself or someone else this season first up we have the carbon steel griddle easily my most used item it lives on the stove back there such a
[01:54] versatile pan that can be used for almost anything and then it comes with a nice little Grill press as well if you're looking for that number two very underrated pan in my opinion the stainless steel saer 3 quarts obviously
[02:08] dishes but I've used this for so many things you can deep fry in it you can also Brazen it if you don't have a walk you could honestly try stir frying in this tomato sauces pastas very very useful pan all right and then third
[02:23] definitely not necessary but if you make a lot of eggs like he does I mean having a small non-stick pan for eggs omelets things of that nature it's just like things you are making and really you'd be surprised just how versatile just
[02:38] getting like three pans like this is but obviously Maiden has anything that you could possibly want so head down to the link in my description to take advantage of some of the best deals of the year for example I just picked up this cute
[02:50] little butter warmer to make some ghee for this video specifically so now let's for this video specifically so now let's answer the question how is butter made temperature made from the fat and protein content of churned cream and on
[03:05] protein content of churned cream and on a 100 G basis it is 80 to 85% fat 14 to a 100 G basis it is 80 to 85% fat 14 to 18% water5 to 1% protein trace minerals make up less than 1% and then if it's added salt is around 0 to
[03:18] 1.5% and really this is the key all of these sticks of butter are slightly Butters are yellower than others because of the vitamin and mineral content a salted butter will obviously taste salty
[03:30] compared to one with no salt added and people say that higher butter fat butter is better because there is less water and to understand how these sticks of butter end up having 80 or 85% butter fat it all starts with milk butter
[03:44] starts with full fat milk from cows which by weight is roughly 88% water 4.5% carbohydrates or sugar in the form of lactose 3.5% fat 3.25% protein and around 1% of various vitamins and minerals and we make butter by
[03:59] separating the fat content in milk so as you can imagine it takes a lot of milk to make a small amount of butter for example if we have 1,000 G or a kilo of milk this means we have roughly 35 G of fat to work with so assuming that final
[04:13] butter fat percentage is 80% this will yield around 40 G of butter now the easiest way to make your own butter at home is to start with heavy whipping cream instead of whole milk because it is much more concentrated so I'm going
[04:26] to whip up some in this mixer right here and while I do that let's learn how this and while I do that let's learn how this works at a commercial through a well-defined process to ensure quality control and first is milk
[04:41] collection and cream separation at this step the milk is collected from the cows on a dairy farm and transported to a Dairy processing plant and this is arguably the most important step because the raw milk that you start with
[04:55] dictates The Taste Aroma texture of the resulting butter you end up making some companies own their herds of dairy cows or only get milk from specific farms for example carye gold right on the label says this butter is made from
[05:08] the milk from Irish grass-fed cows other brands you see at the store may call out grass-fed milk as well while more mass-produced butter May Source their milk from lots of different Farms after the milk is collected it is separated
[05:20] into cream and skim milk using a centrifuge that spins the milk at high speeds this cream is now concentrated to 36 to 44% butterfat and sent to step two to be made into butter while the remaining skim milk can now be sold as
[05:34] lowfat milk or used in other dairy products step two is cream pasteurization and optionally Crain the concentrated cream is pasteurized by heating it to 185° F which will kill any harmful bacteria or enzymes while also
[05:48] ensuring shelf life and consistent flavor and as noted in on food and cooking raw cream butter whether sweet or cultured is now nearly extinct in the United States and a rarity even in Europe it was prize for its pure cream
[06:00] flavor without the cooked milk NOK due to pasteurization but the flavor is fragile as it deteriorates after about just 10 days unless that butter is frozen so after pasteurization the cream is quickly and carefully cooled down for
[06:14] the churning process however before it gets there the cream is often intentionally cultured or inoculated with strains of lactobacillus or lactic acid bacteria lab consume the carbohydrates or sugars that are still
[06:27] present in the cream and produce lactic acid as a metabolite in addition to Aroma compounds such as dietal which is said to intensify the basic butter Aroma butter you buy this addition of lab may be referred to as natural flavorings
[06:42] lactic acid or cultures and after that cream is pureed and soured a bit through the culturing process it is ready for step three churning and I will say this is just pretty cool so far so I mean essentially I pulled off some of the
[06:55] Just Whipped Cream which is really nice and then all we do is keep mixing it up buttermilk comes out which is I mean basically what they're doing at the basically what they're doing at the commercial level
[07:10] separates the butter fat from the butter forms small butter granules that will begin to Clump together to form a solid butter and I can see this happening right in my stand mixer the buttermilk
[07:24] and can be used to sell for dairy product and we have officially flipped the product the cream we started with was a fat in water Emulsion and now the butter is a water in fat emulsion and this turning process and the temperature
[07:38] important for dictating the spreadability of the final butter product as noted in on food and cooking the fat globules solid crystals and water droplets are embedded in a continuous mass of semi-solid free fat
[07:51] that coats them all a high proportion of ordered crystals imparts a stiff firmness to cold butter while free fat lends spreadability and the tendency to leak liquid fat as it warms and softens as the churning process continues the
[08:04] solid butter fat clumps together into a singular Mass where is ready for washing singular Mass where is ready for washing and as you can see this is that buttermilk that is left off from the heaven cream
[08:18] and now I am ready to massage and knead this butter to get rid of that excess water content that's still in there at this point butter is washed with cold water to remove any remaining buttermilk thus reducing the moisture content even
[08:33] further and additionally coloring can be added at this step the butter is worked in a machine to improve that texture and consistency across all the butter being produced and typically at this point there is an in between step kind of 4.5
[08:46] depending on if you're making salted or unsalted butter as we learned in the salt Deep dive salt is not soluble in fat but because butter is around 15% water it can become fully dissolved in the water content and evenly distributed
[09:00] throughout the product on average 1% salt by weight is added to the butter at this stage and in the sticks that I bought the lowest was 65 Mig of sodium per tablespoon or 14 G while the highest was the carry gold at 100 mg per
[09:13] was the carry gold at 100 mg per tablespoon or 14 G and this is important to know in a recipe because it's not just a question of using salted versus unsalted butter but you should also ask how salty is your salted butter for
[09:28] example if you need a stick of butter for a recipe a stick of unsalted butter would have no sodium added this European salted butter would have around 560 G of sodium added and the carry good would have all the way up to 800 G of sodium
[09:41] and this will significantly impact the salty taste of what you are making we're going to talk more about this in the tasting section of this video but lastly let's move to step five packing after the butter has reached the desired
[09:53] texture color and final butter fat percentage it is then ready to be molded and packed into sticks or tubs and stored in cold conditions where it will then be delivered to your grocery store and we are faced with tons of butter
[10:06] options to choose from so while it's pretty straightforward to make your own butter at home you've got to keep in mind this butter process will be slightly different for every butter producer around the world for example in
[10:18] Europe butter must be at least 82% butter fat while in the US it can be as low as 80% that being said there are many US producers that make butter with much higher butter fat perc percentages and if you're looking to buy butter at
[10:31] your farmers market or your grocery store there's kind of four key variables to pay attention to First is the milk from Step One such as grass-fed second is cultured versus sweet cream from step two third is the final butterfat
[10:44] then fourth whether salt has been added understand how we end up with so many different butter options that have these slight kind of chemical differences we can ask some more interesting questions
[10:57] first is what is the flavor of butter second how is butter used in cooking and third how big of a difference do these variables actually
[11:10] properties make up the flavor of food taste Aroma texture sight physical and the human element and during the section we're going to look at how butter is explain why butter is unique compared to other cooking fats and oils we use so
[11:24] let's start with taste our tongue registers five core tastes sweet sour salty bitter and Umami and from a pure taste perspective butter has a mild flavor and you can test this for yourself quite easily so if you plug
[11:38] your tongue you should pretty easily be able to taste the difference between unsalted and salted butter this is the unsalted nice creamy texture but pretty mild in terms of taste when you open up your nose it's
[11:53] pretty cool but we'll get to that shortly now here's that same salted shortly now here's that same salted butter still plugging my nose
[12:05] salty quality to it now even that test just very cool but again very easy to tell the difference between salty and unsalted butter however because butter from a pure taste perspective is very neutral pretty hard to taste a
[12:18] difference when you plug a nose and are only using unsalted butter again I can tell it's a fat but so there are some differences between these but not really from a
[12:31] taste perspective the one caveat is if you're using salted butter it should be very easy for you to tell which one is salted and which one is not salted and this really makes a lot of sense because the reason why we love butter so much is
[12:45] due to its Aroma an ingredient can have hundreds of aromatic molecules that our nose can register and really it's the smell of food that gives us a lot of the complexity and depth in the flavor of the dishes we eat all the time and
[12:58] butter is is no different so in front of me I have three common cooking fats we typically use olive oil has that nice like green use olive oil has that nice like green grass Aroma peanut oil extremely neutral
[13:10] that's one of the reasons why we use it because it is very neutral smelling and then butter obviously has that kind of unique buttery Aroma to it and while it's easy to smell a difference between different cooking fats like this really
[13:24] what we're asking is how different do these Aromas smell from something that's these Aromas smell from something that's maybe 80% butter fat to 85% butter fat and what exactly is inside of butter that gives it its unique Aroma well
[13:39] let's break it down in this study on the chemical and sensory properties of butter there is a table that lists some of the volatile aromatic compounds among the six butter samples Chosen and as you can see there are varying amounts of all
[13:51] these aromatic compounds in the samples leading to different composite Aromas that our nose will be able to tell and and if you remember back to the vanilla deep dive we learned that a vanilla bean can have well over 200 unique aromatic
[14:04] compounds but it's vanilin that is the most prominent one and this is the compound used to make artificial vanilla extract and it's a similar idea with butter as noted in the study diol is one of the most important Aroma compounds in
[14:18] butter it is also responsible for the sweet and creamy flavor of other dairy products such as cheese milk and fermented milks additionally butyric acid seems to also be important when it comes to the aroma butyric acid is the
[14:31] same compound used in Hershey chocolate that is said to enhance the aroma of the milk chocolate and create more pronounced Dairy taste the problem is though some people like Hershey's chocolate other people think it's
[14:43] terrible due to that butyric acid now obviously I do not have a gas the volatile compounds in these Butters can do is blindfold up at home and eat some butter and see if these are
[14:58] different at all okay so now in front of me I've got six different unsalted butter varieties ranging in 80% butter fat up to 85% butter fat so I'm just going to blindfold up and kind of give you some of my observations I've never
[15:12] interested to see how different these really
[15:26] to find my Butters here all right number
[15:39] one it's definitely reminiscent of butter number two got to be careful
[15:53] it like something up in the top of my nose H I think I like that that one better than this first one man I got to be so careful about not moving these out be so careful about not moving these out of out of
[16:09] space got here had the strongest Aroma for me number four I think hopefully
[16:31] like it's definitely butter but not very strong all right number
[16:46] is four and five definitely not very strong in terms of Aroma all right let strong in terms of Aroma all right let me come down to our sixth one
[17:03] all right let me go back to think I want to go back to number I think this is wasn't as different as I thought this is pretty interesting there's definitely
[17:17] some differences that I'm picking up in the aroma number two was the most different in terms of its Aroma but I don't know specifically what is causing that so let's see what it is okay so this is a pretty interesting
[17:31] test because firstly I would say you can definitely pick up on some Aroma differences between these various Butters but I would quickly caveat and say none of them to me smell inherently better than any of the others like
[17:46] they're all appropriately buttery the one that smelled the most different is kind of this organic one for whatever reason I don't know maybe it's butyric acid that I'm smelling I don't know if it's actually that butter compound the
[17:59] dietal um and really what I'm interested in doing now is I think you need to do kind of AB testing for each of these Butters side by side and I do want to do one triangle test we're going to do a little buttered uh buttered English
[18:12] muffin and then I also want to do another um AB test where we test out two of these and test them with some sauteed onions so let's do just that for this triangle test I chose the Cary gold unsalted butter and the
[18:26] organic sweet cream unsalted butter from the first first test and spread them over a toasted English muffin and with this added variable let's see if it's possible to pick up on a difference in aroma so I have the English muffin
[18:38] samples here I use that uh sweet cream butter and then this is some Cary gold both unsalted um let's see if I can actually tell which one is which
[18:59] there you are are okay all right number
[19:13] good that one kind of reminded me of that sweet cream butter we'll see though we'll see all right number
[19:29] I think one and two are different let's go to number three okay all really good let me come back to number one
[19:48] and I think one is different yeah yeah yeah there we go man that's cool so this was another very interesting test and yeah I was a to pick out the aroma difference and
[20:01] pick out which ones were the same which one was different again this sweet cream butter this particular body just has like it has some kind of Aroma note that to me just stands out more than some of those other butter varieties but again
[20:13] not in like a good bad way it's just it's just different really and really if butter brand in the world I mean you'd AB test all this butter I have over here you do it with tons and tons of people but really this does go to show like
[20:27] yeah you can smell a difference between the Butters and really what I want to do now is see if I can still pick up on some Aroma difference in in butter but using it with sauteed onions that have been cooked down for several minutes
[20:40] also I will say salted butter on an English muffin definitely better than unsalted another reason why butter is different from other cooking fats is that its Aroma can change significantly when it's cooked and a great example of
[20:52] this are two products made from cooking down butter even further ghee and clarified butter both ghee and clarified butter are made by melting butter and separating the milk proteins and water from the butter fat but the main
[21:04] difference is that ghee is typically cooked longer this allows the milk proteins to Brown creating hundreds of new Aromas through the May reaction that are then dissolved into the resulting butter fat and ghee typically has a
[21:16] nuttier intense Aroma compared to clarified butter but by removing milk proteins both products now have a smoke point that has dramatically increased well to over 450° F so you don't really need to worry about them
[21:30] burning whether you buy some or make your own everyone should smell ghee side by side next to regular butter ghee has a much more intense nutty Aroma that similar to how you'd easily be able to tell the difference between olive oil
[21:44] and butter sauteed onions you'd easily be able to tell a difference between ghee sauteed onions and regular butter sauteed onions and really what I'm asking in this next test though is how different do two sauteed onions taste
[21:58] with slightly different chemical differences in the butter now in this quick experiment I'm doing I'm not Browning the butter but I am mixing in a onions which will change the aroma quite a bit so will I be able to pick up on
[22:12] see okay so I've got the buttered onions we're using butter in this case in that last kind of English muffin test we were using the butter as a way to provide some Aroma to our you know English
[22:28] muffin and we're still using it in that way here too but in this case we have another very aromatic ingredient that we're also using which are some onions so let's blindfold up and see if I can still pick up on a difference between
[22:57] one one takeway right away is that you know cooked butter tastes much different than when it was used raw just tastes like butter onions to
[23:12] me again tastes like buttered onions I I don't know how different that was there's my third one all right number slightly cooked these at different rates I think one and three are the same but
[23:27] of the onions not because it tastes significantly different and then I think two is different so let's see yeah okay I slightly these onions are slightly
[23:40] softer um and that's what I picked up on as far as like Aroma right like I think one of the big takeaways is that the the flavor and the aroma of butter changes quite a bit when you move from you know using it raw on
[23:55] on some butter to cooking it down and then additionally I mean like maybe it's there's no spices added to this like if this was being used in a soup a stew a sauce I mean we we would be going further and further and further away
[24:09] from any differences that may have existed or that did exist in that original test and really I mean this is what's really cool about butter is there are multiple things that can affect the overall flavor of what it goes through
[24:23] and now we got to talk about texture site the physical and the human element with the food we eat and one of the differences in the butter we buy as you can see based on this lineup is the color and naturally this brings up two
[24:37] questions first why is some butter darker yellow than others and secondly when does the color of butter even matter in the egg video we learned that the color of a yolk is dependent on the diet of a chicken and it's the same idea
[24:49] with dairy cows cows that have grazed on grasses will have residual orange keratin pigments in their milk fat from the natural diet then once it's concentrated down is what gives butter its signature yellow Hue and producers
[25:01] of margarine and other plant-based Butters will typically use pure beta katene or other natural pigments like a n seed to recreate that color consumers now expect remember though color is purely visible and the color can change
[25:14] seasonally depending on what the cows happen to be eating for example this 85% butter fat is closer in color to the 80% sweet cream butter but its texture is more similar to this yellow 84% butterfat butter and if you're spreading
[25:28] add in a fresh pad of yellow butter to some bread or a pancake and eating it directly I mean yeah that yellow color just looks to me to be better however if you're sweating down some aromatics to be used in a soup or stew or some other
[25:40] dish there's probably going to be very minimal effect on that final product now what can make a massive difference in the final products is the texture of the butter fat have a different texture than
[25:53] an 80% butter fat and the answer is it depends the texture of butter is dependent on its physical temperature so really what seems like a basic question ends up being a little bit more complex and it's why I put together this chart
[26:06] of how the texture of butter changes as the temperature increases most cocon and remain that way until they are heated up beyond their smoke point butter on the other hand goes through several distinct changes as it increases
[26:20] temperatures due to the water fat and protein content and this chart explains ranges and how it changes the text T of the food we cook below 32° F butter is
[26:32] freezer the water content will freeze making the stick of butter completely making the stick of butter completely solid moving up from 33 to 60° F we have cold butter typically we store butter in the fridge where the texture is firm but
[26:45] through it and cold butter is typically cut into pie crusts biscuits and scones Where It Coats the flour leading to kind flaky one like a croissant where that butter would be laminated in between
[26:58] between the dough moving up we have room temperature butter from 60 to 80° F and butter at this stage reaches a creamy texture and is easily spreadable and Whi for example the reason we cream room temperature butter is first to evenly
[27:12] butter where it can start to dissolve but secondly we can whip air into the butter and increase its volume and another key point about root temperature butter is that in general we can better taste and smell the Aromas of warm or
[27:25] hot foods while cold ingredients taste muted from 90 to 95° we have warm butter that is starting to melt and at this stage butter begins to break down into a liquid state where the fat protein and water content will start to separate as
[27:39] we heat butter above 95° F at this point it becomes completely liquid the fat and water content will separate further unless you keep them emulsified by temperature to understand if you are making a butter based sauce at 158° F
[27:55] butter on its own will split completely no matter how much you try to stir it and this is typically why we use butter with other ingredients when making a sauce for example the reason we melt butter with flour to form a roof or a
[28:07] bamel sauce with milk and cheese is that the butter can form an Emulsion with those other ingredients and won't split even at temperatures above 158° F next we have the boiling point of water 212°
[28:21] content in butter evaporates which is important for a couple of reasons first if it's just placed in a pan and you see butter bubbling you can use this as a temperature gauge and secondly when used in baking the water evaporating is what
[28:35] baked goods leading to the variety of textures that we love in biscuits pie crusts and pastries depending on how that butter was distributed throughout the dough from 250° fhe to 350° fhe we
[28:49] have clarification and Browning and at this temperature is where we can remove the milk proteins to create clarified butter and ghee to make them more useful for high temp temperature cooking now if you continue to heat up butter and leave
[29:01] the milk proteins in there they will begin to smoke and burn at temperatures around 350° and above which we obviously want to avoid these temperature understanding Butter's role in various colonary applications and hopefully you
[29:16] can see why a basic question like what butter has the best texture is really complex to answer that fully you would need to ask several follow-up questions such as what dish room am I making how much butter does this recipe use and
[29:28] what temperature changes will the butter be going through and depending on if you were using butter for a bagel or using it in a bashel with a bunch of other ingredients or a pie crust or a pastry all of those are going to have different
[29:40] answers and it may matter more or less depending on what you are making now when it comes to baking using an 85% butter fat compared to an 80% butter fat means you are literally adding more fat and less water to the dough and 5% in
[29:55] many baking recipes is enough to see a difference in texture and send this clip to your favorite baking Creator because here's another video I would love to see made the title of the video is what butter makes the best croissant and
[30:07] here's how I would test it first I would make three batches of croissants with an make three batches of croissants with an 80% 82% and an 85% butter fat and then they visually look any different are there different Aromas between the
[30:20] croissants and do they have a different texture now I would not stop the video after those first three batches I would actually do another three batches and make some adjustments for example if you're using 80% butter fat I would then
[30:32] try reducing the amount of water added to the dough to see if that makes any differences in that final texture sight or taste and this is just one baking item I mean you could follow that same testing structure for pancakes for bread
[30:45] rolls for pie crusts other pastries and you can really see how complex that question of like what is the textur difference between an 85 or an 80% other variables in the recipes that we are making and I would love to see some
[31:00] other creators take their spin off of maybe what we learned in this video bachelors in butter let's answer that question I posed at the beginning of question I posed at the beginning of this video is expensive butter worth it
[31:14] generally based on what we've learned in this video I would say yes we are talking 50 cents to a doll more per stick depending on the variety and sticks of butter a week it's not a crazy increase in cost and from from a flavor
[31:28] perspective you can smell a difference in the aroma between butter types darker yellow which visually look really nice on some toast or pancakes certain that you'll be able to taste the difference from and higher butter fat
[31:43] percentage butter means you are literally adding more fat to your food textural difference that being said I hope you realize the point of this video is not to recommend a specific best butter brand because it really depends
[31:57] Journey if you are currently using a grocery store 80% sweet cream butter for your eggs and toast every morning I definitely think it's worth trying out an 82% or above salted butter side by side however if you use butter pretty
[32:11] infrequently and just are kind of using it to sweat down aromatics for like probably wouldn't go out of your way to buy a more expensive butter and if you already do buy one of the more expensive Brands like Cary gold Danish crey vital
[32:25] Farms or any of those kind of higher butter fat uh percentage Butters stick with it but I would also say you should keep exploring try heading to your local weird cultured or flavored Butters look
[32:37] different countries or try making some ghee and seeing how the aroma changes in baking or have a couple specific recipes you make around the holidays I think testing take a family cookie recipe or
[32:51] something and try it with 80% versus 85% butter fat and let me know what happens and using this kind of flavor framework work we talked about you can explain why you may like a certain butter over another for example do I prefer the
[33:04] eggs does the culture butter have a unique Aroma that I really enjoy does the higher butter fat percentage make a softer richer chocolate chip cookie and does that grass-fed have a deeper yellow color that just looks really appealing
[33:18] butter testing this winter let me know down in the comments below and this deep dive was really fun to put together to not only explain you know how is butter made but also how it works from kind of a fundamental cooking level and how it's
[33:32] different from other cooking fats we use all of the time and if no one ends up out earlier I may just have to make it next year and I don't know maybe we can get Alex to get involved as a taste test there but anyway that will wrap it up
[33:45] for me in this one I will catch you all in the next one peace y'all