My wife and I have occasionally made our own butter for years now... one thing people always forget to mention is that it goes bad really quickly. The trick is either to cut it up into chunks and freeze most of it and the remainder you keep in the fridge/defrost later will last about 3 days. Or you can add salt after you've done the separation but this does of course mean you now have salted butter... this will last up to two weeks usually.

▲

clickety_clack 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Do you mold it with your hands under running water to wash away the remaining fluids? Doing that and salting it makes it last for many weeks for me. I don’t even know how long it actually lasts, I’ve always eaten it all before it’s gone bad. Making butter is a way of preserving milk, so it should last more than a couple of weeks.

▲

Wowfunhappy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why does the homemade butter spoil so quickly?

	▲	LarsAlereon 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It usually contains significant amounts of milk protein, which contribute to flavor but spoil about as quickly as milk does. Washing the butter thoroughly until well after the water is clear will improve storage time, as will salting the butter and thoroughly drying it.
	▲	mapotofu 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		It doesn’t. People have been doing this without refrigeration for a long time. The above poster did not wash off the buttermilk at the end which would cause it to spoil.
	▲	Induane 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'm not sure it does. It seems to last similarly to me when I make my own as long as I make sure to use sterilized containers to make it and such. It isn't as long as margarine which is maybe the comparison? Not sure.