Home canning butter and cheese?

[Dame]

I look at my freezers and wonder if there is not some relatively simple way to home can butter and cheese for storage up to a year or two.
I know it is available commerically, but where I live canning it myself would be less hastle and definetely cheeper.  I do not like spending most of the purchase price on long distance purchases, particularly for everyday consumables.  Does anyone know how to do this or where to get information on how to do this?

[Atash Hagmahani]

Oh, boy, I have never heard of such a thing. That must be a local specialty?

The traditional way of preserving cheese is to make it kinda dry and salty, wax it, and store it in a cellar. (On modern cheeses the wax is usually purely decorative! Don't try not refrigerating them).

I will try to remember to go through all my references, and see what I can find out.

[opsec]

Youtube has an answer for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibzaSzegpL4

This is actually for canning lemon-butter, but the basic process of canning is the same whether you use lemon or not. The author says adding lemon to home canned goods prevents botulism from growing.

[Lady Lilya]

Milk-producing animals can be milked all winter long, so I suspect that is why dairy products aren't usually canned or jarred for the long term.

[Dame]

I found canned butter & cheese by Google search engine.  It is for sale inside US only from the emergency supplies people.  The ads say it is imported from Australia.  Austrailian sites did not produce any instructions or producers that I could contact.  I suspect American Law does not allow home production for some reason.

The issue of producing butter from milk on a year round basis can be done, however, winter feed, water and cleanup after a number of milk cows/goats/sheep for the winter is really major and generally unplesant work.  Milking a larger number of cows during the spring, summer fall is way less labour intensive if the excess production is used for butter, cheese, and stored.  Then most of the milk producing animals can be left to dry up until they calve in the spring again.  It is also healthier for the animal to not be in continuous production.

[offdalip]

I have a book on canning and preserving called "preserving the harvest"

it's alright. The takehome message is: Acidic foods can be canned and Basic foods cannot. pure and simple

[opsec]

I've never learned how to can food. How do you tell the difference between an acidic food and a basic food? Can you add ascorbic acid to basic foods and then can it?

[offdalip]

I don't think so, ascorbic acid you only want in tiny amounts anyways.

Foods are naturally acidic or basic by nature and you can't change that basic fact unless you puree to the cellular level since any acidity you add will not absorb thru the
material otherwise. Obvious acidic foods are tomatoes and Alkaline foods might be broccoli and asparagus IIRC but I don't have my book right in front of me

[Lady Lilya]

Acidic foods would also include fruits and berries that are typically made into jams and jellies.

[mjk33663]

I saw a sight with canned butter as I was looking to stock up. The odd thing was that all availble supplies had been bought up by the feds prior to the shipment hitting the CA docks. 




http://www.internet-grocer.net/butter.ht

[Dame]

Home Canning:  I didn't start doing home canning until a few years ago and what I have done I have reviewed with the over 80 crowd who raised their families on home canning.  The books make life so hard.  We ate a jar of apple preserve last week that I had been looking at and wondering about for 2 years now.  It came with a batch of jars, mostly full, cleaned out of my neibours father's basement.  His mother, who canned the stuff passed away in the 1970's.  We fed most of the food to the chickens who really liked it and it came back as eggs and fertilizer for the garden.  This is how we tend to recycle my failed food projects.  The research sites say tests done on canned goods show they are good for years if processed and stored properly.  So, we ate the crab apple butter preserve, it smelled way to good to want to give it to the chickens.  It had the skins still in it and lots of what was probably 1/2 & 1/2 white and brown sugar along with cinnamon, allspice and cloves, maybe some nutmeg.  It tasted great with no hint of mold or spoilage, and we remain healthy.  I need to add that the container was a mason jar with a glass lid.  I would never do this with a metal snap lid.  The glass lids was why I wanted the jars in the first place.

The old timers discourage pressure cooking, too much risk of injury from the steam.  They recommend hot water bath for 3 hours for meats and excessive attention to food hygene during preparation and processing.  It helps if you grew the contents youself so you can process it immediatly after harvest.  I also find that breathable containers for collection and holding reduce the spoilage.  Plastics and metals promote anorobic bacteria growth.

Storing canned goods in a cool, dark, dry environment seem to be the key to long shelf life.  The above apple butter was stored in a dry, cool and dark basement for the duration of it's storage.   

[Atash Hagmahani]

I'll stay out of the detailed stuff...just to comment on the acidity issue:

Foods that are acidic, like MOST (not all!) fruits, and foods that you MAKE acidic, like pickles, don't support the growth of botulism or salmonella.

THAT IS NOT TO SAY THAT THEY CAN'T SPOIL. They can, but you are likely to notice (they'll stink, and turn cloudy and discolored), and are unlikely to kill you.

A mixture of vitamin C and citric acid is often used as a preservative, to enhance the acidity, and the vitamin C will act as an antioxidant. That's how some folks get such beautifully colored jars of canned fruits.

Moist foods that are high in protein, and have neutral pH's (close to 7), are magnets for food poisoning. Furthermore, you might not notice (until you start vomiting your guts out).

If you haven't canned before, I suggest starting with low-risk foods like tomatoes and most tree fruits (apple sauce, peaches, apricots, etc). You can also easily do vegetable relishes IF you acidify them (they should be a little sour like pickles)...follow the recipe carefully to make sure you've added enough vinegar or citric acid/Vitamin C. Tread cautiously with green beans, asparagus, most vegetables actually, meat (including fish), and eggs.

Truly alkaline foods are rare. Lutefisk (fish preserved in lye--a favorite of my ancestors...).

[beentheredonethat]

I bought several #10 cans worth of dehydrated butter for Y2K and was not impressed ( the "butter" flavor is not there), even when using in a cookie recipe from my Mix-A-Meal recipe book http://www.mixameal.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1&zenid=681133c93256fe10c2eb684b7cfe9dda. This is a great little book for using dehydrated foods. Lots of basic mixes you can make. I would stock up on the oils that you use and forget the powdered.

As for the dehydrated cheese, it's passable. Both the butter and cheese were purchased from TOVA Industries (an institutional supplier). Your money would be better spent on things like powdered eggs.

Just my two cents.

[Dame]

Thanks for the words of caution.

The old apple butter was probably closer to an apple chutney recepie given the generous amount of spice and sugar. 

[Bidadisndat]

I know that butter can be canned - I read up on it on the HST site. I'll come back to this a bit later when I can find either the link or the instructions on how to do it. (Printed a copy out for myself but now can't find it, so I'll have to look for the link again anyway.)
BTW, Although butter is canned here in Australia, the company told me it's only for export. And your Feds actually did grab a full consignment when it hit the docks a short while back, but no particular dept will 'fess up to who did so. "Wasn't us", said DHS, FEMA, Military, etc.