Are butter portions are meant to be refrigerated?


(Bob M) #21

True.

By the way, I leave butter out waaaaaaaay longer than 1-2 days. If there’s a detriment to this, I haven’t found it.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #22

I’m with you, Bob.

And the ketchup, too. When the repairman came to fix the old fridge, he was amazed at how much stuff my sister thought it necessary to refrigerate. Americans!


(Laurie) #23

It does depend on ambient temperature, and possibly other things as well. In one apartment, the butter would take on a “cheesy” flavor if left out. It was an attic apartment in an old house, so maybe there was mold, etc., in the air.

Over the years I’ve experienced every kind of insect and rodent varmint, so I learned to put everything in the fridge. But we don’t have such critters where I live now, so I’ve started leaving butter out again.


(Susan) #24

Yep. All you northerners! In Hawaii, if you leave butter out all day, you wake up to a puddle where the fat and the milk solids have separated. I’d love to have soft butter to spread, but it’s not to be here. (Hey, wait a minute, I don’t have toast any more, so it’s not an issue anyway!)


(Laurie) #25

It can get hot in the north too! Especially in the daytime. I used to be a camp cook in northern Ontario. The butter would be rock hard at breakfast time and a puddle at noon.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #26

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:


#27

I live in Hungary and my house in insulated well and my kitchen has close to zero direct sunlight.
And my A/C is downstairs and that part has no inner walls or door except for the bathroom so it affects the kitchen. It’s just for the hottest 2 weeks or something, we use it for heating.
It just never gets hot enough for butter to get way too soft let alone melt! Well, coconut oil melts in summer. Super hard in winter, some spoons got bent :smiley:

I do need soft butter in many things :slight_smile: And I even spread it on my bread replacement (I can bake bread too but my sponge cakes are loads better. a bit soft though - 100% eggs so it’s unavoidable I suppose - so soft butter is needed.)


(Jane) #28

Nonsense. Been leaving butter on the counter for up to a week-10 days for decades and never had it go rancid or mold in 1-2 days.

Yes, it will degrade but it takes much longer than that.


(Allie) #29

Really depends where you live.


(Jane) #30

True. If you lived in Africa with no climate control I could see 1-2 days.

I figured if butter could last over 10 days in hot, humid Houston it would last more than 1-2 days anywhere else. But would welcome other’s personal experience.


#31

I agree with all of the above. I found that ours gets moldy after a long period of time if we’re not careful or sanitary with the knife and deposit some crumbs of things like bread onto the butter stick. Hello Petri dish. But otherwise it’ll last a long time on the counter (air tight container) and is so much easier to handle than hard pats from the fridge.


#32

Funny you mention this. My farmer friend puts all his eggs in one basket (as the saying goes) and leaves them hanging in his kitchen. Not refrigerated. I still can’t bring myself to not refrigerate eggs.


#33

I never refridgerate eggs (except boiled and cracked raw ones, of course) as

  1. there is zero need, they are fine after a few weeks in the cupboard. I used to eat them up to 1 month old, that is an okay limit for eggs I have found (allegedly autumn eggs last longer but I never tested it. or did anything with eggs over 1 month old, we always ate them up during that time, I never had more than 200-250 eggs in my cupboard and that couldn’t last for more than a month)
  2. I couldn’t fit 10 eggs into my fridge let alone 100 or 200.
    It worked well for all the eggs I ever bought. Some must have been washed as they are clean… Still. Eggs last moderately long in room temperature :slight_smile:

Never saw moldy butter yet. Moldy yeast, that’s common, very rarely we get moldy cheese but butter in the fridge seemingly last forever (probably not but we always ate it up in a few months after it expired) and it gets rancid but not moldy if we leave it out for more than 1-2 weeks.
Never get moldy bread either, I don’t understand why moldy bread is such a common thing, ours can’t get moldy and we often have 70% relative humidity and very, very rarely below 60. Maybe people put bread into some plastic bag, I don’t know how one can make it moldy otherwise…


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #34

There are two cases:

  • Eggs have not been washed: Eggs have a natural coating that keeps them from spoiling. Unwashed eggs (you can brush them clean, but do not wash them) should not be refrigerated, because moisture in the fridge will react with the coating and make the eggs spoil sooner.

  • Eggs have been washed: This is the case with eggs sold commercially in the U.S. Washed eggs need to be refrigerated, because the coating has been removed, and they will spoil if left out.

It’s confusing, but that’s the way it works.


#35

Good to know! That actually makes sense. Thanks for sharing this info Paul.


(Jane) #36

I leave my hen eggs out on the counter in a FIFO skelter so always eating the oldest ones.

I am a bit paranoid that if it raining when we collect eggs and they get the least bit of moisture on them in spite of covering them…… I refrigerate them. I don’t know how wet they have to be to lose their coating but not worth the risk on the rare occasion I have to refrigerate.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #37

At the rate we use eggs in this house, it wouldn’t be all that much of a problem, lol! :egg: :chicken:


#38

Maybe I should wash some eggs, leave it for some weeks and see what happens… :thinking: How long are they supposed to last?

I did a similar thing (but not for so long) with boiled eggs. They allegedly last for surprisingly long in their intact shell. They didn’t.

Meanwhile raw egg whites last very long in the fridge. I do try to use them up soon but it wouldn’t be so comfortable to keep them there only for 1-2 days. But they are fine after 5 (for me, at least, IDK how sensitive people can be) so all is well.

I need to test things as there are so many wrong beliefs. Like whites can’t properly whipped if some yolk gets into the stuff. They always get perfectly whipped if it’s just a few drops. There was a video where they tested fats in egg whites too and some fat was fine, the whipping went fine. But sometimes I use just a tiny bit of flavoring and spice and it interferes… Egg whites are tricky. But I am very glad they are fine with some yolk as it’s very often some gets in :slight_smile: (I am whipping egg whites, usually many at a time multiple times a week since ages, I have experience.)


(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #39

Am I right in thinking fresher the egg, thicker the white albumen … or is that a chicken health thing?


(Allie) #40

Me too, I have two spirals due to how many eggs I get and transfer from one to the other.