old frozen butter...

[Cat]

Found a sealed box of butter in my freezer dated 2006. Somehow I missed it; though in my defense it was wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, too.

 

I went ahead and thawed it and tried it. It is perfectly fine, with great texture, and no odd "freezer taste".

 

Just thought I'd share for future reference.

[Midnightmom]

Thank you Cat. I don't have six year old butter, but the butter I do have has been in there for about a year. Nice to know it is still good.

[Mt_Rider]

I have a stash that I'm sure is .....very old. VERY glad to know it's fine. It's foil wrapped...

 

MtRider {.....my tiny house is like the magician's hat }

[Canned Nerd]

Nice to know since mine has been there since 2007

[Jeepers]

Good to know.

[themartianchick]

It is good that you found it, Cat, but what would you do with that much butter if your power went out? I've never kept more than 12-15 lbs of butter in my freezer at one time and it gets used within the year. If my power went out during the summer, I'd probably lose whatever butter was in the freezer at that time. I never really thought about it until I read your post.

 

I tend to think of cooking oil/olive as being the fat that I store, since it is shelf stable (though it can still get rancid). I suppose in an emergency, I could trade a pound of butter to someone without any for something else that my family might want...

 

With the meat/veggies in the freezer, I can cook it as it thaws and can up what we can't use promptly...I can't do that with butter, though!

[Cat]

I don't really have that much butter frozen. This was just one box I found under another package.

 

The problem with having "old stuff" in the freezer is that you couldn't donate it to any shelter in an emergency, either. They would throw a 6-yo box of butter away in *HORROR*.

 

I try to keep it rotated out, and I suppose in a REAL emergency, I'd try to make ghee. Assuming, of course, that I still had the ability to access the info online or have actually printed it out.

 

**Cat makes a note to start printing out "useful stuff"...**

[Canned Nerd]

Our ancestors didn't have freezers and still managed to have butter around, so all is not lost in that respect. Prepping is not 100% on anything, which is why one is encouraging to have more than one method of storage for various foods and even more than one location. I also anticipate dying at some point, which means that 100% of my stored supplies will be useless to me, but I store them anyway since they 'may' be useful.

[The WE2's]

I keep a pound of butter in my freezer, a pound in a plastic (tightly closed lid) container in my refrigerator, and one soft stick in my Butter Bell which sits out in the open on my prep table. I just change the water in my Better Bell each day. I guess if I had a large amount of butter that I was fearlful of losing, I'd try to figure out some sort of "butter bell" on a huge scale??? Perhaps a large ceramic bowl filled with as much butter as I could get in it, and then turned upside down on a glass pie pan...changing the water daily? Would probably be okay for a week or so?

[PEARL89]

It is good that you found it, Cat, but what would you do with that much butter if your power went out? I've never kept more than 12-15 lbs of butter in my freezer at one time and it gets used within the year. If my power went out during the summer, I'd probably lose whatever butter was in the freezer at that time. I never really thought about it until I read your post.

 

I tend to think of cooking oil/olive as being the fat that I store, since it is shelf stable (though it can still get rancid). I suppose in an emergency, I could trade a pound of butter to someone without any for something else that my family might want...

 

With the meat/veggies in the freezer, I can cook it as it thaws and can up what we can't use promptly...I can't do that with butter, though!

If your power goes out you can spend some time canning the butter (NOT talking Ghee here) and saving it for use as a shelf stable item.

I buy butter whenever it is on sale. These days like during Christmas Baking sales at the grocery 2-3 pounds for $5. Usually get 20 plus pounds and take 10 or so packages out of the freezer and can them up for use in my Preps. Or do a heavy baking spree with most of it going back into the freezer for future baking pies, cookie dough, bread, .... unfortunately these items will either need immediate cooking or they will spoil Much faster that the butter in a blackout.

 

Another thing to remember is that storing things in Ice chests then wrapping the chests in sleeping bags will extend the time

the food will stay well frozen be 2-4 days. IF left undisturbed.