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In a world of quick fixes, culturing your own buttermilk might sound crazy, but once your learn how to make buttermilk with live cultures, you’ll find out just how easy it is, and you’ll never not have a jar in your fridge ever again.

Buttermilk is quite possibly one of the most famous ingredients in baking. We have buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk biscuits, cornbread, muffins, pie, and the list goes on.

But what is buttermilk exactly?

You might be surprised to know that what we’re not talking about is the milk leftover from making butter.

When it comes to baking, that type of buttermilk is just the cream, with the fat removed. Not much different from the regular milk in your refrigerator.

When we talk about using buttermilk in baking, we’re talking about milk with a lower pH, meaning a higher acidity.

This raised acidity reacts with the leavening agents (baking soda and/or baking power) in your baking, causing your biscuits, pancakes, etc. to rise higher, and be more fluffy.

It also adds more depth of flavor, as in buttermilk pie, where you’re not asking for leavening at all.

In the modern world, this affect is often achieved using a buttermilk substitute made by adding vinegar or lemon juice to fresh milk.

This is a really good substitute that works well in a pinch because it achieves that lowered pH that interacts with your leavening agent. The only drawback here is that it lacks the flavors developed in cultured buttermilk.

How to make quick buttermilk

1 cup milk
1 Tablespoon of vinegar or fresh lemon juice

Stir your cup of milk and vinegar together and let rest five minutes. Milk should curdle somewhat.
Use as directed.

This is a great way to get the benefits of buttermilk right away when you need them.

Traditional buttermilk on the other hand, requires 24 hours to make.

But the benefits and tangy flavor are beyond worth it.

Your homemade buttermilk will last for a few weeks in the refrigerator, ready to add flavor and loft to all your baking at a moments notice.

Where to get buttermilk Cultures

The first thing to know is that you will need live cultures to start your buttermilk. You cannot get live cultures from store-bought buttermilk. This buttermilk has been cultured and then pasteurized. Why? Because buttermilk is a cool temperature culture, that continues to grow (though slowly) in the refrigerator.

In commercially sold buttermilk, the product needs to meet a certain set of criteria (ph levels, etc.), and be stable. So, unlike yogurt which can be sold with live bacteria, buttermilk is pasteurized, killing the live bacteria, before it’s sold.

For that reason, you will need to buy freeze dried buttermilk culture, which is essentially just buttermilk powder, from somewhere like New England Cheese Supply or Amazon, or have a friend who can supply you with fresh, live buttermilk.

How to make traditional, cultured buttermilk

Once you’ve procured your culture, the rest is really easy.

Simply heat your whole milk up to 86º, and stir in the culture.
Cover the inoculated milk loosely (I usually just set the lid on top without screwing it down), and let incubate at room temperature for about 24 hours. Your buttermilk should be thick, and have a pleasant tang.

At 86ºF, if you’re using raw milk, your milk is still raw.

It should be noted that either raw or pasteurized milk is fine for making buttermilk.

Storing Cultured buttermilk

After your buttermilk has incubated, it should be thick, with a texture similar to yogurt. Similar to yogurt, again, the bacteria has formed a gel as it grew, that can be broken down with stirring or shaking to make a consistency you can pour.

Once your buttermilk is properly cultured, you may screw down the lid, and store it in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Making future batches of buttermilk

To save buttermilk for future batches, I like to freeze it in an ice cube tray to halt continued growth of bacteria.

This way I can avoid buying more freeze dried cultures, and stir in a few cubes of frozen buttermilk to start my next batch instead.

You can use the buttermilk straight from your refrigerator. This works well if you make buttermilk frequently, but be aware that with the continued growth of bacteria, especially if using raw milk, you can end up with competing bacteria throwing off the results.

Most likely, it’s not the sort of bacteria that will harm you, but it is a good idea to keep some frozen from your first batch, so you can restart as needed.

Recipes to use your buttermilk in:

In most quick bread-type recipes, you can swap milk for buttermilk to increase the loft of the final product, add flavor, and aid in digestibility. You can use buttermilk in many baked goods, swapping out yogurt, sour cream, and often milk, at a 1:1 ratio (in other words one cup milk = one cup buttermilk.

You will find that some of these recipes use milk or yogurt, which can easily be substituted for your cultured buttermilk.