How to Make Cultured Buttermilk (Probiotic!)

Cultured buttermilk is more than just soured milk used for baking. It is a delicious probiotic beverage with a slightly cottage cheese-like flavor.

Buttermilk is traditionally made with a mesophilic (room temperature-loving) culture, which means it is REALLY easy to make! Homemade buttermilk is a simple and delicious alternative to homemade yogurt and milk kefir. Perfect for anyone looking to get more probiotics into their diet!

Types of Buttermilk

There are three basic types of buttermilk:

1. Leftover from churning butter: Traditionally buttermilk was the leftover liquid from churning butter. It’s really fun and easy to make homemade butter. The resulting buttermilk is quite thin and slightly sweet. My kids love to drink it! But it’s not at all the same as the buttermilk you find in the grocery store.
2. Soured milk: Many how-to-make buttermilk recipes involve mixing milk with lemon juice or white vinegar to create soured milk that is really only good for baking. It lacks all the flavor and probiotics that come with store-bought cultured buttermilk.
3. Cultured buttermilk is made by fermenting milk with a bacteria culture. Not only is REALLY easy to make but it’s also packed full of flavor and probiotics!

Where to find culture for homemade buttermilk

The hardest part of making buttermilk is finding a good starter culture! 

While most (all?) brands of buttermilk that you find in the grocery store have been cultured, it doesn’t mean that they still have an active culture. If you’re new to making buttermilk, you may need to experiment with a few different brands to find one that has an active culture.

Here are a few things to look for:

• Smaller dairies
• Organic dairies
• Avoid short expiry dates (you want the freshest culture available)

In Ireland we used Cuinneog, and in Canada, we use Avalon. Alternatively, you can buy packets of buttermilk culture online.

Saving buttermilk culture

Once you have a reliable culture, you can make buttermilk over and over again. The only trick is to make sure that you maintain a vigorous culture. Here is how to save your culture for future batches of buttermilk:

• Buttermilk needs to be recultured every week to remain vigorous. That’s a great option if you’re using buttermilk as a homemade yogurt alternative.
• Alternatively, freeze 1/2 cup portions of buttermilk for future batches. It will remain vigorous for at least 4 months in the deep freezer.

How To Use Cultured Buttermilk

Cultured buttermilk is a delicious way to get a dose of probiotics. It is sweeter than yogurt and kefir. In Brittany, fermented lait ribot is more popular than milk!

Here are a few ways to enjoy cultured buttermilk:

• Buttermilk is perfect for providing acidity in soda bread, pancakes, and muffins.
• It can be served as a mild-tasting yogurt. To make thick, yogurt-like buttermilk, heat the milk like you would for yogurt, to denature the proteins. Then let it cool to room temperature before stirring in the culture. There’s no need to use a yogurt maker because it prefers temperatures around 72 F (22 C)!
• Fermented buttermilk is perfect for smoothies.
• We use it instead of milk on our cereal in the morning. (I’m not even sure my kids know what cereal tastes like without fermented dairy)!
• Culturing milk with buttermilk is a great way to preserve milk while camping or traveling. It doesn’t need to be kept cool.
• Buttermilk can also be used to make sour cream! It’s not the same culture as traditional sour cream, but it’s close enough.
• Did you know that buttermilk can be used as a culture to make cottage cheese? It’s actually the traditional way for farmers to make cheese. It was the perfect option since the culture was readily available and didn’t need to be heated.

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