Are butter portions are meant to be refrigerated?

#1

or Can you put them in room temp and they don’t go bad for a long time?

(Allie) #2

Room temp is OK for a short time early as the milk solids in butter will go mouldy.

#3

Short time as one or two weeks?

(Allie) #4

Short time as in a few hours, couple of days at most depending where you live and how warm the house is.

#5

I only keep it at room temperature only for few to several days (the time we need to use up 50g butter). I wash the butter holder more rarely but regularly. The rest of our butter is in the fridge where it never went bad yet. I don’t even care about expiration date, butter lasts a very long time.

Temperature probably plays a big role. My kitchen is never hot (never cold either. so lower to higher room temperature, butter probably goes bad quicker in summer but I don’t remember).

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #6

Ghee may last longer at room temp, though I still leave mine in the fridge

(KM) #7

I keep my ghee on the counter with my spices; because it has no milk solids it really never goes bad, or at least not in the month or two it takes to use up a jar. I keep most of my butter in the freezer, it does it absolutely no harm and it basically stays fine for years, provided it’s wrapped well and doesn’t pick up odors.

#8

yea refrig vs. on counter is ALL about how fast it will go rancid.
leaving it out can vary but with us keto or carnivore people, now long is that butter truly gonna be out there on the counter LOL I know I go thru butter like white on rice so I would never have a possible rancid issue, :slight_smile:
But I keep it in fridge cause I never need to spread it easily on anything, I just use it to cook with so for me fridge is fine at all times.

#9

I really don’t know if it is meant to be refrigerated or not. :grinning:

We leave out a stick of butter in the kitchen in the butter dish always, and go through it quickly, so I have no idea how long it sits out. With 3 sons still at home, and my husband and me there, we use it up fast for cooking eggs, etc. I have never had butter go rancid that I’m aware of so far. I do wash the dish frequently though.

(Doug) #10

Same here - with the temperature averaging 72 F or 22 C. It’s usually more of a “block” of butter, like 2 sticks, and it lasts from 1 to 3 weeks, most times. Never had any go bad…

#11

2 sticks are 1 to 3 wks.
my gosh I go thru a stick a day or maybe a day and 1/2 LOL
wild how it is all so diff. for each of us!!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #12

I suppose it depends on the ambient temperature. In my house, we leave the butter out, and it’s fine. We buy several pounds at a time and keep them in the freezer. The current pound sits in the fridge, and we take sticks from it as needed. The current stick sits out and gets reasonably soft, without turning into a puddle. I suppose that in summer, if we didn’t have air conditioning, it would probably turn liquid. If I take a stick out of the fridge and want to use it right away, 12 or 13 seconds in the microwave is sufficient to make it pliable.

I spend a year in London with my ex before we moved to the U.S., and he always kept a pound (or perhaps it was half a kilo) in a dish on the kitchen counter. We weren’t keto back then, but we did go through it quickly enough that we never had problems with rancidity. Of course the English climate is such that butter left on the counter would never melt.

It always surprised me that the milkman could leave milk, butter, and orange juice out on the doorstep with no problems. You couldn’t do that in the part of the U.S. where I grew up; in winter it would freeze solid and in summer, spoil very quickly. So, back in the days when there were still milkmen here, the dairy gave us an insulated box to protect the products from the weather.

(Bob M) #13

I saw a review on America’s Test Kitchen where they actually liked a device that air-sealed butter in the fridge better than any other device for keeping the butter in the fridge. They did taste tests and felt that air-sealing kept off flavors (or “flavours” if you swing UK) from developing.

Our new fridge doesn’t even have a butter holder, which is basically a plastic shelf with a cover that shuts over the shelf (and probably does nothing for air sealing anyway). So, we leave butter in the wrapping on a shelf and also keep some butter in a dish on the table. If we buy “too much” butter, we’ll put some in the freezer in their original containers plus wrapped in a zip-lock freezer bag.

(Jane) #14

We have been keeping butter on the counter for decades with no issues. If we go on vacation I will put it in the fridge. It will eventually go moldy but it has been rare for us.

I also suspected it was the margerine companies who pushed butter HAD to be refrigerated so people would prefer it since it spreads right out of the fridge.

#15

Not in small town Indiana in the fifties (at least my small town). In the winter we kids were instructed to keep an eye out and get the milk inside quickly. When we didn’t, milk would freeze in the gallon bottles and expand in a column out the top, lifting the cap by an inch or two. Kind of pretty and educational as well. As for butter, I converted us to a counter family about the time we went keto and started using more butter. We’ve never had salted butter go rancid.

(Bob M) #16

If I had two butter containers, I’d put (salted) butter in one and leave it out to see how long it takes before it goes bad.

If I had three butter containers, I’d put salted butter in one and unsalted butter in another and leave them both out until they went bad. I’ve heard that salted lasts longer, though I have my doubts.

#17

Do an internet search for a butter bell, they keep butter fresh and sealed with water on the counter, in all but the hottest climates.

#18

Butter will go rancid over time. Generally, butter is at least 80 % fat and has a much lower water content than other dairy, which makes for a product that’s much less susceptible to bacterial growth. However, it will still degrade when left out for longer periods of time. 1-2 days max.

#19

Science says that is the wrong thing to do, as the stagnate water will aid in the degrading of the butter. Test it yourself.

#20

Problem with that experiment protocol, is you are relying on you ability to smell or see the unwanted bacteria. You may not smell or see it until its too late.