How to choose the right butter

When the farmer has extra milk, he makes butter. And, who doesn’t love some real butter?

Mmmmm. Butter spread on sourdough bread. Butter melted over veggies. Steak with a flavored butter compote. Buttery cookies and pie crust. Butter in your coffee. I mean, it’s all amazingly delicious.

If you’ve shopped on our store, you may have been overwhelmed by the variety of butter options. You may have wondered - what’s the difference between regular, cultured, fresh, and spring butter? Let’s explore this a bit.

What do all of our butters have in common?

Our butter is real butter. It’s cream churned into butter. Voila! Nothing fake added - just maybe some Celtic sea salt. 

It’s naturally yellow. Since our cows are 100% grass fed, the butter always has a yellow color. Butter gets its yellow color from the beta carotene in grass. FYI, many commercial store bought butters have added annatos or carotene to artificially fulfill customers’ expectations of yellow butter. 

The farmer offers salted or unsalted options. Salt was traditionally added to butter as a natural preservative. With modern refrigeration, some people prefer salted butter for the flavor boost. Unsalted butter is also known as sweet butter. Unsalted butter is preferred in baking.

It’s frozen (with the exception of fresh butter). The farmer always freezes his butter just after it’s made. This is the best way for him to get you the highest quality product and keep it available.

Regular Butter

Our regular butter is made from milk in the summer, fall, or winter. It’s naturally sweet and comes frozen.

Cultured Butter

Cultured butter is made with sour cream instead of fresh cream. The cream is fermented with a starter culture. This technique was traditionally used to help preserve the butter for the longest time.

Cultured butter has a tart and tangy flavor. It can be used in any way you’d use a regular butter.

Fresh Butter

Fresh butter is made-to-order from fresh cream and is never frozen. The farmer offers this option only sometimes to those who either prefer to not eat frozen food or like to enjoy the complex flavors that each season offers.

Spring Butter

Amongst all butters, spring butter is the elite. It is the crème de la crème (pun intended).

Spring grasses are the most nutritionally complex, which makes spring butter have the highest nutritional value. Amongst all butters, spring butter has the highest levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, CLAs, trace minerals, and Vitamins A, D, E, and K.

Because spring grasses contain the highest level of beta carotene, spring butter has a wonderful yellow-orange color. 

And, you may have guessed it. It also tastes phenomenal. The flavors are more concentrated.

Ghee

Ghee, or clarified butter, is made by heating butter until all water is evaporated and the proteins separate. The result is a product that has nearly 100% butterfat.

Ghee has a unique flavor and is fantastic for high temperature cooking.

Storing Butter

Butter can be stored for just about forever in the freezer, but we recommend a max of one year for the best quality. It will last 6-9 months in the fridge, and about 2 weeks at room temperature.

You can check out all of our butter options - including some great sales and bundle deals - here.

Enjoy the food!