The reality is that in a long-term survival situation, food like butter will be rare – most of us will not have a dairy cow lurking in our backyard.
That reality means we will have to depend heavily on barter networks or innovating to preserve these basic, but difficult to store foods; here is one person's experimentation, which hopefully, will spur readers to offer ideas of their own.
Dehydrating Butter:
This is done commercially, mainly as freeze-dried butter. It can be gone at home but the finished product is more of a soft-spread than a hard butter. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I asked David if he had ever tried dehydrating butter…
“I have seen “Butter Powder” but have no idea how they make it. I have never put any in the dehydrator to see how it comes out but I'm sure there's more to it than just applying heat. Maybe mixing it with cornstarch and drying? I know what I'm going to be doing tonight – trying to dehydrate butter! Will get back to you tomorrow on what happened.”
“I was thinking about the butter powder and got to thinking that maybe powdered milk would work better than cornstarch. My line of thought was that cornstarch would tend to thicken anything that was cooked with the powder.
I mixed it all up and added just enough water to dissolve the milk, and it's in the dehydrator now. Because the water is bound in all that fat, it may take all night to dry. I don't know, but I will keep an eye on it.
It tasted just a little like powdered milk but I think the overall taste will be okay. If it doesn't work out the way I want it to, I'll try it with cornstarch tomorrow.”
“I tried mixing some of the butter with only milk powder in it but it just clumped and wouldn't dissolve in the butter fat. It only blended in after I poured in a few cups of water. I melted 2 pounds of butter, mixed in 4 cups of milk powder, and 2 cups of water. It's starting to dry out now in the dehydrator and so far it tastes like it will have a decent flavor. If it has enough milk powder in it I think it will do okay.”
(Next Day) “I was pretty sure the butter would take a while because of the high fat content, but so far it looks like it just may turn out to be something workable. I'll know more after it finishes drying. I may have to redo the experiment with a little more milk powder. I think it may still be too oily to store. I'm thinking that to make a usable spread from it, we may be able to mix it with some olive or other good oil and use it that way. I'm sure it would be usable in cooking as it is right now, but I'll have to give it a try to find out for sure.”
(Later, same day) “I took the butter out of the dehydrator a little while ago. It is still pretty oily and I don't know how it will store. I may have to do some more experimenting with it, “BUT!”, I did try mixing some with oil and running it in the blender. The milk just clumped together like it did when I originally mixed it in to the butter. I turned the blender on and started dripping water in as it ran, and almost like an explosion, the whole batch of it turned white and thick like mayonnaise, instantly! It startled me!
I tasted it and I do think it would make a good spread, but it is most definitely not butter or margarine. I tried it on a piece of fresh bread, on some boiled potatoes, and on some plain pasta – it wasn't bad. I would consider it a plus if I didn't already have fresh or canned butter available.”
(Another ‘later') “I put the bowl in the fridge for a while and it set up just like a tub of soft-spread margarine. I tried a bit more of it on a piece of bread; now I know it's a winner! It melted in my mouth just like real butter, even though it's flavor wasn't a match. It would be especially good with chives or garlic mixed in, and used as a spread on fresh, hot bread or crackers.”
(Two days after that) “I used some of the ‘experimental' butter tonight. Made “Chicken n dumplins” out of the leftover cured chicken and put some on biscuits. It worked well on both, but on the biscuits it didn't melt. It stayed crunchy but the taste was good.”
(A few days later) “I made a discovery tonight! I was going to make more of the ‘powdered butter, and my mixing bowl was too small so I tried to use less water and the butter/powdered milk mixture just lumped up like a ball of bread dough when I mixed it with the beaters. It didn't feel overly oily and it didn't stick to my hands so I just pressed some of it onto the liners of the dehydrator trays and put them on to dehydrate.
I had a crazy idea and mixed some of the remaining ‘dough' up with water and ran the mixer in it until it was all dissolved and guess what? It was milk! Whole milk, no butter or oil anywhere, and it tasted better than the whole milk made with the Nido Whole Milk Powder.
Butter and dairy products are food items that in a longer term survival situation, most of us will probably have to do without.
These were several experiments for preserving butter that garnered mixed results.
For other ideas, please visit Poverty Prepping and if you have any alternative ideas, please mention them below!