Comment on a video about making your own butter, is it cost effective in the United States?
Stop buying butter! Do it yourself! Only 1 ingredient needed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCzflCjzKQ
In the United States I think heavy cream with 35% butter fat costs more than butter. And your method requires a mixer, blender, bowls and utensils. So ordinary, non chef, humans might be better to just buy butter when it is on sale. It keeps a long time.
I really like watching you work. The care you put into each step is a joy to watch. Maybe you can find ways that anyone can use.
A local bulk food store sells “heavy whipping cream”. 1.5 liters is 50.721 fluid ounces. They sell in 32 fluid ounce containers for $4.96. So the cost of 1.5 liters is roughly $4.96*(50.721/32) = $7.86.
That same store sells 4 pounds of butter (1.81437 kg) for $10.44 or $5.75 per kg butter
You got 900 grams = 0.9 kg of butter from your method. That would cost $5.75 * 0.9 = $5.18 for 0.9 kg of butter.
So your ingredients (heavy whipping cream) cost $7.86 and the same amount of butter costs $5.18. I did find a place that sells 32 ounces at $2.99. If I could buy from them, the butter from it would cost ($2.99/$4.96) * $5.18 = $3.12 for the 0.9 kg from your method. I would have to find butter at $3.12/0.9 = $3.47 per kg or $1.57 per pound.
So your methods can be cost effective (and fun if you have the equipment) in the United States too. By the way, I asked Google “Cheapest Heavy Whipping Cream” and the lowest was $2.99 at Target. But you need to travel to the store or have it delivered.
I asked Google “cheapest price for butter” and got $2.66 per pound which is much higher than your $1.57 per pound from your method. I wish YouTube would learn how to attach calculators to their pages. Then you could give people financial decision making tools as well as recipes. Your recipe gives no prices or costs. So “Stop Buying Butter” implies your method is cheaper, but you have not really given the whole story.
Personally I think your butter will taste better, and it seems you can control the texture and consistency and salt to taste. And it seems it can be cheaper too. And consistently so. If one has mixer, blender, bowls and time. And can shop without too high a cost for time and travel, taxes and tips.
Thank you again for a beautiful and informative video. Please bug YouTube to give you a decent calculator for your financial model and planning. All these conversions and price comparisons should be done once for anyone on the Internet. Google has tools for that, but won’t share in a form where, once something is done once on the Internet, it is available where it it immediately accessible in every place it is needed. But YouTube and Google seem to be fighting, not working together for the good of all 7.8 Billion people now. And, not all countries use butter, or have access to it, or think it is a good thing when they don’t have money to buy it. I will leave that for another day.
Richard Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation
