Butter Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Butter

Hi, I'm Josh Windsor, and I'm a butter expert.

[whimsical string music]

That's nice.

Aw, butter's delicious.

[sliding]

[dings]

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So what I have in front of me here is two unsalted butters.

So, what is butter?

Butter is the preservation of the milk fat

that comes from milk.

There are two things that I can notice visually on this.

The first is the shape.

Weirdly enough, there are actually two different shapes

on the sticks for butter, or printing.

This divides, in the US, along the Rockies.

So on the eastern side of the Rockies,

they're these long, skinnier sticks,

whereas on the western side of the Rockies,

they're a little more compact and squat.

This is what we call an eastern package.

Whereas this is more block form.

And the other thing that I'm noticing here is color.

So this one here on our left, our B butter,

has a more yellowish hue to it.

Whereas this one's a little lighter,

closer to cream coloring on it.

The coloring milk actually comes from keratin,

which is the same kind of thing that colors carrots.

That comes from the green pasture that cows

or sheep or goats or wherever

we're getting our milk sources from graze on.

Cows don't really do anything with keratin,

so it can show up in the milk

and actually color the butter.

The other way you can get color into butter

is by adding coloring to the butter.

So, looking at it right now,

I'm not really sure if this is a pasture butter

or if it's just a butter with food coloring in it.

Well, I think it's time we give these two a taste.

All right, this is cutting nice and smoothly.

So the first thing I'm gonna do is smell it.

A smell is a good indicator of going on

in the flavor on this.

There's like some light buttery notes on this.

A little bit of tang.

There's a smooth texture to this,

it coats the palate really nicely,

it spreads over the tongue and then finishes quickly.

There's no saltiness on it.

That tang that I picked up when I smelling it earlier,

I'm not picking up on the palate at all.

In fact, mainly all that's coming across on this

is like a little bit of a cooked nuttiness,

and some of that delicate butter flavor.

This is a quality butter.

Now let's see what's going on with butter A now.

This cuts much softer.

It could just be a temperature thing,

or there could be a little bit

higher butter fat content in this.

The more butter fat there is in a butter.

And so the big difference that's standing out to me

in terms of this butter as it plays on the mouth,

is the texture and how it coats the palate,

and then cleans up.

And this usually an indication of the content

of butter fat that is in the butter.

In the US, by law, butter has to be at least 80% butter fat.

In Europe, however, butter needs to be at least 82%.

So often, when you see European-style

on a package of butter, it means that

that butter fat content is 82% or higher.

The greater the butter fat content in the butter,

the higher the price point on that.

So usually, when you have a bit more creamy,

mouth-coating feel to the butter,

it is a European-style or higher butter fat content.

The smoother it's going to cut.

And again, that delicate, light aroma of butter

is what's really coming through here.

Which is what you would expect on an unsalted butter.

Unsalted butters tend to have a more milder flavor

than some of their other types and counterparts.

All right, let's give it a try.

The texture is still coating

the entire inside of the mouth.

It's a little more oily on the finish,

but still cleans up really nicely.

The primary use or where most people

are using unsalted butters is in baking

or cooking applications.

But usually, when you're baking,

you wanna control the salt by adding the salt yourself

as opposed to relying on the salt content of the butter.

And so, unsalted butters are a prime candidate

for all of your baking applications,

as well as some of your classic French sauces

like Béarnaise, Hollandaise, Beurre Blanc, and so forth.

But this one is a little creamier,

has a bit more thick mouthfeel to it.

And it makes me think that it has

a higher butter fat content.

It may be in the European style.

[decisive string music]

I'm gonna go with this being the higher price point,

and this being the lower price point.

So, moment of truth,

let's see which one is more expensive

or how wrong I may be.

[drumroll]

Yeah, that is a significant price difference,

which you actually don't see very often in unsalted butters.

So we're looking at the two ends of the spectrum here.

And I'm guessing the big change in these two

is that butter fat content,

that is a really big driver on the price of unsalted butter.

Don't just let price be your driver

on which butter you're going to purchase.

As I said, these are both quality butters.

This one is, you know, if you do want an unsalted butter

to spread on toast or to really let the flavor shine through

if you're making some type of buttered pasta dish,

this is a really good choice.

This one, I would use more in pastry baking.

It's probably gonna create a great pie crust

or something like a laminated pastry like a croissant.

[sliding]

So, in front of me right now, I have two salted butters.

And the main difference between salted butters

and unsalted butters is, surprisingly, salt.

And that's about all there is in the difference

between these two categories of butter.

Salted butters have a more robust flavor,

salt is a flavor enhancer.

And some of the delicate flavors in butter

get muted when you don't have salt added to it.

Salted butters are typically not used

in baking and cooking purposes,

and more as a topping or spread.

I don't see any real flakes of salt in either of these,

so I'm guessing that these are both

uniformly distributed salt on them.

And the color differentiation, again,

we have a yellower butter here on our right with butter A,

and we have a paler color butter on butter B.

This could be seasonality or again,

it could be added food coloring to the butter.

Based upon the coloring and the shape,

I'm thinking this is probably

going to be a higher price point.

But it's more the shape as a driver on this one for me,

because I think it's appealing to a market

that is looking for a more artisanal product.

I'm gonna start with butter A this time around.

Get this nice little scoop.

And next I'm gonna give it a smell.

Now, this is an incredibly mild butter,

there isn't a lot of aroma coming off of it.

Maybe a hint of sweet cream, but not much else is on this,

on the nose.

All right, so let's give it a taste.

This is a very firm butter,

but it's at room temperature,

there's a lot of body to it.

It takes a little while to dissolve on the tongue.

It doesn't spread around the mouth

like our last two unsalted butters.

In terms of the mouthfeel, though,

I think this is probably in the American range,

so somewhere around 80%,

but it's a little difficult to tell

just because of how firm the texture is on it.

So I'm tasting a stronger butter flavor

than I was getting on the aroma from this.

There's a slight salting on this,

so I guess this is in the lightly

to slightly salted category.

The texture is really different than I've tasted

on the other two butters so far,

whereas the texture on this one is a little tight,

it's a little firmer.

It doesn't melt on the tongue

and the spread across my mouth

in the way that the other two butters do.

And it finishes just a little oily on the end there,

so the texture is really the big driver on this one for me.

Yeah, so let's go ahead and try B

and see how these two stack up.

THere's a little bit of flakiness on the outside of this.

The texture on B is going to be slightly different

than the texture on A.

Because of the flaking on it,

I'm thinking it's gonna actually be a little smoother.

Again, a very delicate, slight aroma here.

I get a bit of cream and a little bit of butter on it,

but not a lot, nothing overpowering.

So let's give it a try.

So, if I had to make a guess

between the price difference on these two,

I'm going to say that butter A

is a higher price point butter than butter B.

And again, it's gonna come down to packaging for me.

Even though there is like a big difference in texture

and how these butters taste.

In this case, these salted butters,

marketing and market preferences

are really driving the price on them.

[decisive string music]

So we have A and B here.

[drumroll]

A is $19.98,

and $3.39,

that is a whopping difference between those two.

Just judging on the flavor and the texture alone,

my everyday butter on toast, I would go with butter B.

And butter A is something that I would reserve

for very unique applications

where I want the butter to be incorporating

into the flavors of a more complicated dish.

[sliding]

All right, now we're moving onto a more complex category.

These are two cultured butters.

Cultured butter is butter in which

the cream has been cultured.

So, culturing of butter is going

to make it more aromatically complex.

Typically, hallmarks of cultured butter

are going to be a slight tanginess

due to the acidification that happens

during the culturing process,

as well as some of the byproducts of that fermentation

are chemicals known as diacetyl and lactones,

which are really, in conjunction with each other,

what we think of as butter flavor.

Originally, all butter was cultured

up until about the mid 19th century.

And the reason that is is the way that

you get cream from milk is you would have

to let it sit overnight.

So, cream is a milk product in which

all of the milk fat or butter fat

is aggregated and floated to the top of milk.

And that is just a high concentration of the milk fat

or the butter fat.

But that takes time and temperature,

so usually, this was done with evening milk,

so after the cows were milked,

it was set in a vat or a canister of some kind,

allowed to cool in the evening temperatures,

and in the morning, the cream had come to the top.

So this is where we get the phrase,

the cream rises to the top,

or if you're Irish, top of the morning,

'cause the cream is on the top of the milk.

But had happened overnight is that

that lactic acid bacteria that's in the environment

had settled into the cream in the milk

and begun that fermentation process.

So all cream was fermented or cultured to some degree.

So let's jump in and take a look

at these two butters in front of us.

Right away, butter B is jumping out to me.

It is in this molded shape

and there's a pressed cow on it.

This thing is adorable.

That is a butter that is intended to be presented.

There is there some effort

and a mold that is used in order

to get the butter in this format

that we haven't seen on any of the other butters

we've talked about so far.

So this is definitely not a utility butter,

this is a butter that is meant to sit on a plate.

You can't look at a butter

and tell whether it's been cultured or not.

Cultures are microbes.

And then moving on to A,

this is a presentation that we've seen before.

This is butter in its block form.

Coloring, we're on the slighter yellow end of the spectrum.

I would say a cream or a cru on this.

There are are no flakes in it,

there's no, this is not a compound butter.

And again, it's a very pleasing visual presentation,

but not as compact and designed as we see in butter B.

I am going to start with butter A.

All right, that is a nice, smooth cut.

Check it for aroma.

And right away, there is a very strong buttery smell

that is jumping off of this sample here.

And that is a good indication

that you're dealing with a cultured butter.

As I said, culturing a butter

increases what we think of as the classic butter flavor,

and that should really be strong on the aroma.

So cultured butters, when they're put out on a plate,

should actually fill the room a little bit

with that buttery aroma.

That's nice.

The texture's really good on this.

It's creamy.

This is a salted butter,

a little heavier on the salt

than what I would call a lightly salted butter.

No flakes on this,

I'm not getting any crystalline crunch on this,

so this would be what would you would see

typically marketed as a cultured, salted butter.

Okay, let's try butter B here,

which I'm really curious what's going on inside this butter.

In the way the butter is melting on the tongue

and moving around the palate,

I would say this is probably also a European-style butter.

This is not in the 80% range,

but this is probably in the 82-83% butter fat on that.

Oh, there's some smokiness on this.

I'm guessing that what this is is smoked salt

on this particular butter.

It's cleaning up nicely,

coating the palate nicely,

I'm also gonna say that this is a European-style butter.

We haven't talked about length,

but this one has length.

All of that is lingering on my palate.

It's actually ending a little garlicky and chivey on here,

so there might be quite a bit

that has been added to the butter.

[decisive string music]

And I am going to say that butter B

is a more expensive butter.

So, let's take a look.

[drumroll]

Let's do it.

Oh, those are pretty close, those are--

So, you can see immediately that we've gone up in price

on both of these particular products.

Again, culturing adds a significant amount of money

to the final product.

And that is because of the amount of time

and the amount of labor that is involved

with culturing the cream.

Some of these additional features of this butter

drove the price just a little bit higher on it.

These are not cooking butters,

not with that price point,

and these added flavors,

they would get lost when you were using 'em

in a sauce or in baking,

so these are really butters

that are intended to be standing on their own.

[sliding]

Now we're moving on to the weird, wonderful world

of non-cow butters or non-bovine butters.

So, you can make butter from any mammal's milk

that produces milk fat or butter fat.

There is yak milk, there's water buffalo milk,

I've even seen reindeer milk used to make butter.

But most of the butters that you're gonna find out there

that are not cow are either gonna be goat

or they're going to be sheep.

Looking at these two butters,

right away, I notice that there

is a big difference in coloration.

Butter A has a yellower hue to it than butter B,

which has a white hue.

This actually tells me a lot about these butters

or starts to lead me to think

that they might be different types of butter.

Remember earlier, when we were talking about keratin

and the green, leafy pasture?

Well, that keratin in cow's milk is not used by cows,

so it passes through into the milk,

and then their butters are some shade of yellow

depending on how much keratin was in their diet.

Goats, however, use all of that keratin

to produce vitamin A.

And so, goat's milk is always going to be

this clear or alabaster white,

even when it's not in its milk form.

So goat milk cheeses, goat milk butters

are often an alabaster white hue.

So this, on the left, I'm thinking,

is probably a goat's milk.

In terms of the shape and size on this,

the big difference that I'm seeing

is one is in a block and one is in this circular form.

This probably came from a plastic tub.

And so, this is bulk butter that has just been shaped

by the packaging that it's in,

and not printed like a traditional butter.

It may indicate that it's a smaller producer

that doesn't have access to expensive packaging equipment,

or it may just be that that was just a choice

and easier to distribute.

All right, it's a very soft, it's a very clean cut.

It's probably cuts a little bit more like lard

than it does like butter.

The aroma is really light, like an uncultured butter,

so I'm guessing that this is not a cultured butter.

This has a lot of texture, though.

It melts really quickly on the tongue.

Lightly salted, a little bit of butter notes.

But it's a good butter.

Thinking now that this might be a goat milk,

and that a little bit of coloring has been added to it

to make it look more like what people expect butter to be.

Which would lower the price point for me.

All right, let's try butter B.

All right, so this is a firmer butter.

It spoons off almost like ice cream

on that in its thickness.

It's a little, what we call gummy in its texture.

This smells like butter,

there is a definitely butter aroma on it.

So I'm gonna guess that this is a cultured butter as well.

There's a lot of flavors building on this one,

there's actually a little bit of fruitiness,

like I get some apple notes on it.

The salt content is probably in the slightly salted range.

Texture is good, has very good mouthfeel.

And there's some length on this, on it.

Yeah, this is much more of a butter

that I would use for topping bread

than say, this butter on the right here, butter A.

[decisive string music]

I would put my bet on the higher price point being butter B.

All right, let's see if my hunches

about goat butter are right.

[drumroll]

Oh yeah, that's a significant difference on that.

This has a lot more flavor complexity,

and so you'd want that butter to stand on its own.

It's also a little bit more delicate and spreadable in that,

so it's gonna really be something

that you'd use as a topping.

Whereas this has a really good butter fat content,

the flavor's a little more delicate,

so if you are looking to use goat butter in your baking

or your cooking, I would recommend this one

for that application.

[sliding]

So now we're looking at non-dairy butters.

These are butters that are not made from milk

and also a category that I'm not as strong on,

being a dairy person myself.

Again, we have two classic presentations of the product.

Definite difference in coloring on these.

This one is on the white side,

there's also some brown dusting across it.

Instead, it's striate, it's not uniform in color.

Butter B is much closer to what we think of as butter,

although it's still a little on the browner side

than on the yellow side.

Let's see here.

Which one do I wanna try first?

I am gonna go with this one.

All right, that is a nice, smooth cut on it.

I'm guessing this is gonna be creamy on the palate.

There is some strong butter flavor on this,

there's also a little bit of sweetness

that is reminiscent of coconut,

so I'm guessing there might some coconut oil

that was used in the production of this.

But a much stronger butter,

traditional butter smell,

than I would expect to find in a product like this.

It could be one of two things at this point.

There could actually be some fermentation

that is creating that diacetyl that we talked about earlier

that gives that real butter aroma.

Or there might actually just be some diacetyl added to this.

Definitely salty.

There's a bit of a nuttiness on it as well.

And again, that butter flavor is definitely coming through.

Doesn't come across as overly greasy,

it melts really nicely on the tongue.

This is a pretty quality product.

And it actually seems like it's designed

to mimic butter to some extent.

So this is really designed as a vegan butter substitute.

Now let's try B and see what it has to offer.

This is a much softer butter.

Still very creamy, smooth cut.

There's not much much for an aroma,

this is an unaromatic butter.

Maybe a hint of coconut.

No nuttiness on it or butter flavors.

This is a salted butter.

The salt is not flake salt,

it's definitely uniform throughout.

There's a slight butter flavor to it,

but mainly this is about texture.

I'm guessing this is probably closer to a margarine

and probably marketed as margarine,

maybe a vegan butter on it just by the coloring.

But this one is really probably intended

mainly as a baking substitute for vegans

than it is as a spread.

[decisive string music]

I am going to venture a guess that butter A

is the higher price point between the two.

Mainly because of the flavor development.

It didn't have some of the astringency

or sharpness that added diacetyl did,

so I think they're developing this

through some kind of culturing process,

which would definitely add to the cost on it.

And that would probably be the biggest driver

on the price between the two.

All right, moment of truth here.

I was saying butter A is the higher price point.

[drumroll]

Oh, that's a significant difference.

Here we see a butter where the price point

is really being driven by the flavor profile

that is adding some of the complexity of butter

to a product or to a dish,

whether it is being topped on a baguette or whatnot.

And this would be a good option for you.

If you're looking for a vegan butter

that is more about baking or a substitute for butter

for cookie recipes or baked breads,

then I would look to the lower price point butter.

I hope you learned that quality and price

are not necessarily correlated with butter.

You can find great quality butters at high price point

and you can find great quality butters at a low price point.

So, I hope you take this knowledge out

and really explore all of the types of butter

that are available to you.