Whatever happened to salted butter?

rachbc

I generally us unsalted as I prefer it and never had it go rancid. Most brands do indeed seem to be coloured coded - I know aldi is

Beckyy

In my experience most unlabelled buters are salted if you read the ingredients. I tend to buy unsalted though, and have never had any problems with it going off.

Edwardia

My husband is such a bread fiend that no butter lasts longer than a fortnight in our house, probably more like a week.

I insist he keeps it in the fridge in summer but in winter he often keeps it in a butter dish in the larder so it's spreadable. I've never known any of it to go off so derek7 I think your supermarket maybe isn't storing it how they should ?

joeyboy

tbh I've found most brands do make it clear, if they don't on the front then just flip it over and see if it just says salt as a second ingredient or not. When they don't say either way I've noticed most are salted, and specifically mention it's an unsalted version if they're not.

chesky

I've never heard of unsalted butter becoming rancid before salted - surely if this were the case the date stamping would take it into account. I always buy unsalted (President red & gold as opposed to the blue and gold salted) and have never had a problem. However, when I served my family unsalted Waitrose own brand, they complained it tasted off (couldn't taste it myself, but my taste buds are probably unreliable).

Edwardia

Wondering whether if we get used to a particular type of butter and then have something else our taste buds don't like it.

Most European butter is cultured eg the process uses lactic acid cultures to ferment the butter a bit. President is a good example of this, it's really rich.

99% of American butter is sweet butter ie since WWII the process has been able to separate cream and make butter immediately so no lactic acid culture.

Americans and Canadians often rave about Kerrygold, Lurpak like it's the best ever. Give em Beurre d'Isigny and they near enough cry from happiness.

Clowance

why do you need to add anything to make butter - merely beating it will separate the fat? I assumed the sweet butter was because they seem to add sugar to everything over there, even bread tastes sweet (as it does if you buy sliced in France).
I assume the cultures and the sweetener is to make it cheaper to produce in some way?

Haffiana

Hmm. Sweet butter is simply an unfermented butter. No added sugar! I'm afraid Edwardia isn't entirely correct - most salted butters such as Kerrygold are sweet butters, NOT fermented. Quite a few unsalted butters are fermented (the correct expression is 'cultured'), because unsalted sweet butter is rather flavourless, but not all of them by any means. Traditional English butters are not fermented, although unsalted Kerrygold is.

Fermentation makes a different, 'fresher' tasting butter - personally I prefer it. All Lurpak butters are fermented, and are fermented for a little longer than the majority of European butters (eg the French), which you can tell if you taste them side by side.

Fermentation means that the butter-making process takes a little longer, but the yield is a bit higher than sweet butters. So price wise it works out about the same.

Edwardia

Sorry, got a bit lost in translation there.. President is cultured aka fermented aka a lactic butter and OH and I lurve that. IF husband gets the job he's after and works nearer home he wants imported organic President with the money he'll save commuting :eek:

DCFC79

Still never had butter go rancid. It does get left out of the fridge purely so its soft rather than being hard to spread.