Do you refrigerate butter?

[Guest]

My MIL always did it this way, even when she had fresh butter directly from her own cow, but the concensus in the family is that this is not a very healthy habit. However, I have wondered if things like this have built her immunity. All us "sterile living" people seem to succumb to anything. ;)

[samba]

No, we use one of these butter keepers with water in the base.

[Guest]

No. No one around does that. We refrigerate it and put it out on the counter to soften an hour or so before a meal or we microwave it a bit on low power to save time.

 

Welcome to my world. http://www.azcentral.com/weather/

 

You can tell most people who live her moved relatively recently because those of us born and raised here don't think 114 is newsworthy-we've seen that plenty of times. Let us know when it's over 120; that will be news. Not exactly a butter friendly environment.

I seriously do not know how you Dessert Peoples can stand that heat. :D And don't go telling me, "oh, but it's a dry heat," because an oven is an oven and any temp over 100 is just too dang hot in my view.

[EmseB]

I grew up keeping it in the fridge, and when I got married found out that my in-laws didn't. Now I leave it out and love having it spreadable whenever I need. But we are not low fat around here so it's not like it sits for weeks and weeks or anything.

[Bluegoat]

I always keep it in the fridge, because for some reason I cannot remember to keep some out.  We kept it out when I was growing up, and that was common.  I've never heard of it going bad and only on the hottest days is there an issue with melting.

 

My dad's family were margarine eaters, and they all kept it in the fridge which in hindsight is odd because it doesn't go bad no matter what you do.

 

I tend to think we are overly worried about leaving things out.

[Arcadia]

I like my butter cold and hard. I cut slabs to put on my slice of bread to eat.

 

ETA:

Mine always stay in the fridge. Born near the Equator and it is already summer hot here these days.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Arcadia

[Lady Florida.]

Chiming in with the other Floridians -

 

I love soft butter and would love to leave it out, but even with the A/C running 24/7 during the warmer monthsset at 74-76, it can get warm in the house. There were times I left it out for more hours than I had planned to and it almost melted. It was definitely a shapeless blob by the time I put it back in the refrigerator.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Lady Florida.

[Lanny]

Not quite.  Eggs in the US are washed before being distributed.  This destroys the natural protection against infection getting through the shell, so refrigeration is necessary.  Eggs in the UK are not washed, so they are shelf stable (and are sold from the shelf in the supermarket).  I have noticed recently that the boxes say to refrigerate when you get them home, however, which makes no sense.....

 

@Laura  Thank you for that explanation!   We are always puzzled, when we think of Eggs in a Refrigerator.  Usually, the Eggs we buy here are from "Free Range" chickens and probably they are healthier. I had no idea it was because they wash the Eggs in the USA, before packaging them for sale. We bought boxes with 30 eggs in the supermarket in Orlando, and they had a printed warning on the box, explaining that they should be kept in a refrigerator, to reduce the risk of illness.   Yes, if the Eggs you buy are not  in a Refrigerator in the supermarket where you shop, but have a notice to Refrigerate them at home, that is very strange.

[UCF612]

We rarely use butter because I have a dairy allergic kid. What we do have goes in the fridge. Plus we live in FL and I imagine it would get hot too fast to be healthy but I don't know that for a fact.

[Mergath]

I keep mine in a small tupperware on the counter. I've only ever had it go rancid once that way, and it was because it sat for a couple weeks. Usually it gets eaten within a few days.

 

I used to use a cute covered butter dish, but it didn't keep as long that way. An airtight container seems to work the best.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Mergath

[Bluegoat]

@Laura  Thank you for that explanation!   We are always puzzled, when we think of Eggs in a Refrigerator.  Usually, the Eggs we buy here are from "Free Range" chickens and probably they are healthier. I had no idea it was because they wash the Eggs in the USA, before packaging them for sale. We bought boxes with 30 eggs in the supermarket in Orlando, and they had a printed warning on the box, explaining that they should be kept in a refrigerator, to reduce the risk of illness.   Yes, if the Eggs you buy are not  in a Refrigerator in the supermarket where you shop, but have a notice to Refrigerate them at home, that is very strange.

 

I think the other thing to remember is that American culture is very liability adverse.  You can get all kinds of directives on packaged food that are essentially about avoiding being sued.

[73349]

Ours is always in the fridge. We don't use it that much, and I only buy unsalted.

[Tanaqui]

 Usually, the Eggs we buy here are from "Free Range" chickens and probably they are healthier.

 

Not necessarily. That term has been completely watered down.

 

Another thing to remember is that chickens in Europe are frequently vaccinated against salmonella, whereas chickens in the US generally aren't. I don't know about other parts of the world.

 

The important thing to remember is this: If your eggs get moist - like, say, if a condensation layer forms on them after you take them out of the fridge for a while - they're at a high risk of contamination. So if you buy them refrigerated, you have to keep them refrigerated, but if you buy them non-refrigerated then you have a choice.

 

[Tap]

I don't like the taste of butter that has been left out for days at a time.  There is a distinct flavor difference.  Not that it goes bad, or has an off taste, just a different taste.  We only go through about a stick (or less) a month for spreading, so it would definitely go bad if I left it out.  For cooking I use it straight from the fridge, or for baking, I may soften it a bit by leaving it out first or micro waving it for 30 sec on half power. 

 

 

[fraidycat]

Here are the things that I keep at room temp:

 

-Butter (new, unopened is refrigerated or frozen)

-Jam/Jelly (never ever cross contaminate with a dirty utensil and it'll be fine)

-"Powdered" parmesan cheese (I refrigerate fresh stuff)

 

We go through all of it too fast for any to go bad. If we go out of town, I'll refrigerate all of the above.

[medawyn]

Butter always (covered) on the counter. Never had a problem.

[fraidycat]

I seriously do not know how you Dessert Peoples can stand that heat. :D And don't go telling me, "oh, but it's a dry heat," because an oven is an oven and any temp over 100 is just too dang hot in my view.

Well, I don't know about Dessert people (must be sweeter than me ;) )but having lived in NC, CA, and AZ - I'd MUCH rather the dry heat of AZ to moist heat anyplace else.

 

Also, I much prefer the DRY cold of Canadian prairie winter to moist cold near the Great Lakes or coasts. Moist cold seeps right into the bones!!

 

Dry temperature variances are tolerable to further extremes on either end of the scale than humid ones. It still gets hot in the desert, but it doesn't make you want to murder people like humidity does. :)

Edited June 5, 2016 by fraidycat

[kwickimom]

ugh I just moved to south Texas and didnt even think about this. I usually always leave my butter out- love having it spreadable.

 

 

I grew up in Alaska and always left butter out. Once I moved to Texas, I couldn't do that anymore. Even if the house is cool, it seems to get weird quickly.

 

[Guest]

Well, I don't know about Dessert people (must be sweeter than me ;) )but having lived in NC, CA, and AZ - I'd MUCH rather the dry heat of AZ to moist heat anyplace else.

 

Also, I much prefer the DRY cold of Canadian prairie winter to moist cold near the Great Lakes or coasts. Moist cold seeps right into the bones!!

 

Dry temperature variances are tolerable to further extremes on either end of the scale than humid ones. It still gets hof in the desert, but it doesn't make you want to murder people like humidity does. :)

Damn. That gets me every time. It just makes no sense. Double consonant makes the vowel short. Oh, except this.

[fraidycat]

Damn. That gets me every time. It just makes no sense. Double consonant makes the vowel short. Oh, except this.

If only we all spoke Esperanto! It follows all the rules, all the time! Lol

 

I just remember I want more dessert and less heat. So dessert gets more s than the desert

 

Also, as I say the words, the pronunciation is very similar, so it seems it's not changing the consonant so much as which syllable gets accented.

 

And apparently I can't spell hoT! :D

Edited June 5, 2016 by fraidycat

[Tanaqui]

Damn. That gets me every time. It just makes no sense. Double consonant makes the vowel short. Oh, except this.

 

 

A deSSert is Sweet Stuff.

 

But one gets ones just "deserts", that is, what is deserved. (Odds are that will totally collapse within the next generation, if it hasn't already. But that's the origin of the phrase.)

Edited June 5, 2016 by Tanaqui

[Miss Tick]

That's so interesting that you add olive oil! I should give that a try sometime. I love both butter and olive oil. :)

2 sticks butter

¾ c. Olive oil

¼ t. Salt

Whirl in the blender until uniform, then refrigerate until it is set. Sore in the fridge (obviously!)

 

It is a nice mix for sautéing because the oil handles the beast better and the butter adds flavor.

[1GirlTwinBoys]

In the fridge and set it out a while before needing it.

[Guest]

A deSSert is Sweet Stuff.

 

But one gets ones just "deserts", that is, what is deserved. (Odds are that will totally collapse within the next generation, if it hasn't already. But that's the origin of the phrase.)

If I think about it, I remember. I basically say, "oh yeah, it's the opposite of the phonetic rule." But most often when I'm just talk-typing, such as here, I don't pause to remember and there ya go.

[SKL]

We leave one stick out in a butter dish so it's easy to spread.  The rest is in the fridge.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I seriously do not know how you Dessert Peoples can stand that heat. :D And don't go telling me, "oh, but it's a dry heat," because an oven is an oven and any temp over 100 is just too dang hot in my view.

We lived in Mesa for three years. We survived thanks to the backyard pool, which was the difference between misery and heaven. I used to joke that there were only two seasons in AZ, spring (everyone else's winter) and Hell.

 

I keep butter out no matter where we live. We go through it pretty fast though.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Alte Veste Academy

[mamiof5]

I think it's funny that 107 is listed as "very warm" and 113 is listed as "very hot." I wonder what the weatherfolk think counts as just plain "hot?"

Lol!!! Probably 110???

[mamiof5]

I seriously do not know how you Dessert Peoples can stand that heat. :D And don't go telling me, "oh, but it's a dry heat," because an oven is an oven and any temp over 100 is just too dang hot in my view.

Well... I don't like rain, tornados, humidity, expensive housing and crazy busy traffic, and I can't stand snow for more than a day?? (Snow is for penguins, I can't tolerate it)...so...that kind of narrows down my options very much. I guess I've become a desert rat 😃 Edited June 5, 2016 by mamiof5

[HS Mom in NC]

Damn. That gets me every time. It just makes no sense. Double consonant makes the vowel short. Oh, except this.

 

The way I was taught to remember which was which is to ask myself, "Which would you rather have more of? More dessert of course! Dessert has more Ss than desert.  You definitely don't want more desert.  I live in a desert-there's more than enough of it.  It takes hours and hours of driving to get out of the desert from here if you go west; days if you go east.

 

[kiana]

I don't leave it out because it makes it take longer to butter something. If it's sitting there soft, spreadable, and delicious, I can eat way too much of it :D

 

I take out the pat I plan to use and let it sit on a plate for a while.

[Tita Gidge]

We don't use butter unless we're baking, in which case we have to go buy it (and any left over is left in the refrigerator until we bake again or we toss it). But my MIL has always left her butter out. They use it daily, throughout each day. She currently lives in a desert climate but she's in a season of life where the a/c is always super cold :lol: so I guess it's a non-issue with the ambient temperature!

[Georgiana Daniels]

I remember being so surprised about this whenever we visited our dd in Costa Rica.  The eggs were just kept in a regular aisle, never refrigerated.  Also, families my dd knew there didn't refrigerate their leftover meat after cooking it either!  They would always eat it up in a couple days, but I was always paranoid to leave any meat out for more than a few hours.  

 

I can't imagine leaving meat out! Germs and other ickies! :eek: :ack2: :zombie:

[HS Mom in NC]

It's not unusual for monthly air conditioning bills to be $400+ around here, so many people keep the thermostat set a little  warmer and run their ceiling fans constantly. Sure, it's probably not anymore dangerous for us to have our butter out in our air conditioned houses than it is for people where it's cooler to have it out in their air conditioned houses, but I think there's a different mindset about temperature here.  We're probably just more paranoid about things getting too warm and going bad because we spend from as early as mid April to as late as mid October trying to strategize about the 100+ degree heat that we overcompensate.

We're in a weird time of year where buildings that accommodate large numbers of people at peak times (restaurants, churches, other businesses) tend to keep their thermostats set to very low temps to handle a large influx of people and they tend to over compensate on the side of too cold instead of too warm, so people prone to feeling cold will take sweaters with them indoors while it's 100-119 degrees outside. Then they glory in the heat of their car for about 5 minutes until they thaw out and then they hope the AC in the vehicle cools it down to tolerable temperatures before they get to their destination.  There are FB memes about it.

[SarahW]

@Laura  Thank you for that explanation!   We are always puzzled, when we think of Eggs in a Refrigerator.  Usually, the Eggs we buy here are from "Free Range" chickens and probably they are healthier. I had no idea it was because they wash the Eggs in the USA, before packaging them for sale. We bought boxes with 30 eggs in the supermarket in Orlando, and they had a printed warning on the box, explaining that they should be kept in a refrigerator, to reduce the risk of illness.   Yes, if the Eggs you buy are not  in a Refrigerator in the supermarket where you shop, but have a notice to Refrigerate them at home, that is very strange.

 

It's probably to instruct all the foreigners (tourists) and Hispanics (migrant workers or otherwise) in Orlando that eggs in America are expected to be refrigerated. Most of the rest of world doesn't, and wouldn't expect they had to do it in America.

 

 

I grew up in a margarine family, so leaving butter out was initially a bit strange to me. I find that most of the people who see my butter dish on the counter and exclaim "But aren't you worried about it making you sick!" are margarine people. After 50 some years of anti-saturated fat campaigns, many people are unaware of its chemical properties.

 

The key to good, tasty, room-temperature butter is really good butter. The expensive stuff, unfortunately, not the dirt cheap CAFO "butter" which is practically white and way too polyunsaturated. Kerrygold is about my minimum quality.

[LucyStoner]

We go through a stick every 2 days so I can leave it out on all but the hottest days. And we don't get that many hot days. I keep all of the extra butter and the bitter we use for baking in the fridge or freezer until we need it.

[foxbridgeacademy]

I have a butter dish where we will leave out salted butter for up to a week at most. Any longer than that and I can tell that it's starting to taste "off" (no one else seems to notice but I'm very sensitive to taste/smell). 

 

ETA: I don't have the problem with hot days but we always run the A/C on warm days and the house stays around 73..... 

Edited June 5, 2016 by foxbridgeacademy

[Rebel Yell]

We keep butter out on the counter. A single stick lasts about 2-3 days.

 

A note for those who take 2weeks to use up a stick and keep it out on the counter: why not just put out a half or quarter stick?

[Katy]

If I buy salted butter and keep it out we always eat it before it goes bad.  Sometimes I do toss it when we've had guests and there are mysterious crumbs in the butter though, but that's because of my allergy.

[J-rap]

The way I was taught to remember which was which is to ask myself, "Which would you rather have more of? More dessert of course! Dessert has more Ss than desert.  You definitely don't want more desert.  I live in a desert-there's more than enough of it.  It takes hours and hours of driving to get out of the desert from here if you go west; days if you go east.

 

 

That's kind of how I was taught too.  Which would you rather have a second helping of?  A dessert, of course!  So that's the one that gets the second S.

[J-rap]

We keep butter out on the counter. A single stick lasts about 2-3 days.

 

A note for those who take 2weeks to use up a stick and keep it out on the counter: why not just put out a half or quarter stick?

 

Haha -- because that's too practical?  Actually, we do do it that way more now, since our children are generally not home more than they're home these days.  :)

[kewb]

I usually keep it on the counter. In the summer months I keep it in the fridge or it will go rancid.

[sassenach]

We keep one stick out in a dish, except in the summer. We don't have ac and it gets too warm to leave it out.

[heartlikealion]

My parents used to use one of those butter keeper things with the water? I guess they got lazy because now they don't keep it in that thing, but they do not store it in the fridge, either. They use a regular butter holder and actually place it in their cupboard lol.

 

We keep ours in the fridge. But I have such little space in the kitchen I don't have much choice. And it's really humid here so I imagine it would melt easily.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

I always refrigerate butter.  If I need it soft, I'll take it out and cut off what I think we'll use and let that soften at room temp while I'm cooking or doing whatever.

 

I was taught that butter turns rancid when left out.

Edited June 5, 2016 by ScoutermominIL

[ktgrok]

I left some out overnight last night by accident. It's all soft and half melted now. Like, barely holding it's form, and squished when I tried to pick it up in the wrapper. So too hot here, even with AC. I keep the thermostat at 77, which means it gets to at least 78 before it kicks in. And the kitchen is often warmer due to oven, toaster, etc. 

[DawnM]

We keep one stick out on the counter, the rest in the fridge.  We go through it WAY too fast for it to go bad!   :lol:

 

I have thought of getting a butter crock.  

[Critterfixer]

I've used a butter crock at times. Currently it makes sense for me to keep the eating butter in the refrigerator, and the cooking butter in the freezer.

[ktgrok]

I had a butter crock, but it was too warm here so the butter kept plopping into the water. 

 

Its actually an issue with baking...I need to leave butter out to soften, but if I leave it out too long it gets melty, not soft, and ruins the texture of cookies. 

[Jan in SC]

We keep it in the refrigerator. Even though we keep the thermostat set for 70 or 71, it still gets really hot in the summer. I always thought that butter would become rancid. Plus, I'm fairly certain that a boy would pick up the stick and just take a bite if I left it on the counter.

[mamiof5]

It's not unusual for monthly air conditioning bills to be $400+ around here, so many people keep the thermostat set a little warmer and run their ceiling fans constantly. Sure, it's probably not anymore dangerous for us to have our butter out in our air conditioned houses than it is for people where it's cooler to have it out in their air conditioned houses, but I think there's a different mindset about temperature here. We're probably just more paranoid about things getting too warm and going bad because we spend from as early as mid April to as late as mid October trying to strategize about the 100+ degree heat that we overcompensate.

 

We're in a weird time of year where buildings that accommodate large numbers of people at peak times (restaurants, churches, other businesses) tend to keep their thermostats set to very low temps to handle a large influx of people and they tend to over compensate on the side of too cold instead of too warm, so people prone to feeling cold will take sweaters with them indoors while it's 100-119 degrees outside. Then they glory in the heat of their car for about 5 minutes until they thaw out and then they hope the AC in the vehicle cools it down to tolerable temperatures before they get to their destination. There are FB memes about it.

You have described perfectly the story of my life for the past almost 17 years. Yup! I'm one of those taking a sweater everywhere in the summer time. Dh makes fun of me, he's warm blooded and doesn't have that issue.