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Preserve

Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

A brine made of water, sugar, saltpetre, used to preserve butter for up to a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Brine That Preserves Butter a Year

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brine

  1. In a large pot, bring 3 gallons of water to a boil.

  2. Add ¼ pound of sugar and 1 tablespoon of saltpetre, stirring until dissolved.

  3. Allow the brine to cool, then strain it carefully.

Pack and cover the butter

  1. Pack the butter tightly into small jars.

  2. Pour the brine over the butter, ensuring it covers the butter by at least 4 inches.

  3. If possible, shape the butter into small rolls and wrap each in a clean muslin cloth, tying with string.

  4. Place a weight on top of the butter to keep it submerged in the brine.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Is the food being preserved, packed tightly so the brine can surround it.
Saltpetre
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the butter and inhibit spoilage.
Good loaf sugar
Adds a mild sweetness that balances the salt in the brine.

The step that matters

Keep the butter fully submerged. Any butter left above the brine is exposed to air and can spoil or go rancid. Covering it by at least 4 inches and weighting it down keeps every surface protected.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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