You can churn cream into butter using kitchen tools just by beating fresh cream until it separates into butter plus buttermilk. An electric mixer or a food processor will do the job. The heavier the cream, the more butter. The same principle applies for making butter in large quantities, but to make a dedicated butter churn, either hand operated or electric, you will need some simple woodworking or metal working skills. Almost a lost art, butter churning is seeing a resurgence with the advent of simpler 'green' lifestyles.

What's Involved

All butter churns consist of a container for the cream and a paddle to agitate it. Containers can be glass jars, wooden barrels, metal tubs, crocks--almost any container that can hold liquid. Usually the container is round, although some of the more antique ones use square wooden tubs. The paddle is called a dasher and it's usually made of wood for hand churning models, although metal dashers are also used. The cream container needs a lid to keep the cream from splashing out. To make a churn in a jar or a crock that does the job, you can use a wooden dowel that will reach all the way to the bottom of the container and project at least six inches above the lid to give yourself a handle to roll between your hands to agitate it. You will need to attach the paddles to the dowel, and the paddles should be wide enough to keep all the cream in motion. Four paddles inserted into slits in the wooden dowel will be enough. Turning the handles between your palms will agitate the cream and ultimately separate it into clumps of butter floating around in the buttermilk. Instructables.com makes the point that anything that keeps the cream moving will do the job and give you butter and buttermilk. Patterns for making butter churns are hard to find, since butter making is somewhat of a lost art. However, some antique patterns for wooden churns have been gathered into a book that is currently available in bookstores; please see the Resources section of this article. If you're a woodworker, you could also choose a pattern for a wooden barrel, make it waterproof, fit it with a lid with an opening in the center for the handle of the dasher. Many old butter churns were made of galvanized metal that had a crank to turn the dasher by hand. Try visiting antique farm stores for tubs and buckets that could be fitted with a simple lid with a dasher. Glass jars are also good containers for the cream. The Dazey butter churns of yesteryear, many of which can still be found in antique stores, were glass jars fitted with a metal lid assembly with a gear wheel that looked a bit like the wheel in a hand egg beater. A hand crank would turn the dasher, which consisted of a metal rod fitted with wooden paddles.

Put the Kids to Work

The family cooking and food website, Moms Menu, illustrates how simple and generic the process of buttermaking really is. An inventive mother improvised a butter churn using children's wooden construction toys and a coffee can. She plugged a long dowel into a wheel and inserted the shortest dowels into the holes around the wheel. The kids then took turns twirling this assembly and soon they had homemade butter.

Source:

Butter Through the Ages

Buttermaking

Moms Menu

More Information:

"Water Tower (Old West Collection of WoodWorking Pattern Books)"; Pat Hoke and Kellly Allen; 1995

Instructales.com: How to Make Butter (and Buttermilk)