Kerry Gold butter? Best Cdn brand butter avail in BC?

Question

question about Kerry Gold butter - can we get that up here? I looked at my neighborhood Super valu but couldn't see it - therefore bought some at the Safeway in Lynden the other day (i know it's very good price at TJ's too) ---- i'd never tasted KG before tho had read about it --- so now that i have - how is it better than good Cdn butter? Tastes a bit same to me as Cdn butter (and diff than USA butter which has a slightly sourish taste to me - almost like margarine, like Lactantia)

do you use KG strictly for eating on toast, bread, etc - or do you cook with it?

ALSO - if you were to buy the best Cdn butter - at a price, as we all know - what brand would it be here in BC?

i'm not a butter expert - tho i cringe when people serve non-butter "substitute"

I look fwd to learning more about this ....

Answer

I don't know if it's even possible for a small BC producer to make their own artisan butter, due to weird milk board rules that require all producers to pool their product. A friend of mine did some research and found out that Gort's Gouda Farm in Salmon Arm may be this province's only producer of organic butter who actually process their own product, and ONLY their own product. Occasionally this butter shows up for sale at Ethical Kitchen in North Vancouver, but at a really shocking price. It's good, but not THAT good! 

I suggest making regular trips to Trader Joe's to buy Kerrygold butter, if you're looking for something special (they also have a great price on organic butter at $4.79/lb, but it may suffer from the sourish taste you described -- I haven't personally had that issue with their butter). Once at the food co-op in Bellingham I found Organic Valley Limited Edition butter, which is made from 100% grass-fed milk in the summer and WOW, is it ever delicious, especially when slathered on a fresh slice of Bread Affair bread, toasted so the butter melts and oozes through the bread...

Answer

interesting article that you found FMED

i had no idea the big foil-wrapped pound / half-pound size of butter IS the law here in Canada. I have always much preferred the American packaging - way handier (four cubes of individ wrapped per pound)

i'll have to ask around and find an ON friend coming out west to ski or something! I'd love to try that Stirling product

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/in-search-of-higher-fat-butter/article547827/?service=mobile

Answer

Wegman's sells Kerry Gold. They put it next to the Plugra butter. I boiught some Kerry Gold once and then looked at the expiration date. It was more than a year in the future! They must have every preservative known to man in it. And I did not much care for the taste either. If you're after good butter, try some Plugra. Or find some Amish or Mennonites close by.

Answer

One more thought. If they will ship it, get some French butter from Dean and Deluca. They have more than one variety of fresh French butter.

Answer

Not exactly on topic, but might be interesting to some...

For those who are in the unpasteurized milk program, most of the places will let you order extra cream with your pickup. We did this a couple times this summer and made butter out of it and then threw it in the freezer.

It is quite easy to do and we used a nice grey salt to salt it. It is effing amazing and just ridiculously good.

Thought I'd throw that out there for those who are interested.

Cheers.

Answer

I checked Benton Bros. on GI today. They carry Cows from PEI, sea salted. $6.95 for a half pound. I didn't see any package information on fat content. No idea how it tastes.

Answer

i went on a butter research mission yesterday - as much as one can at an IGA Marketplace,m, well, it was a very rainy day ; ) -- and i read the labels but cannot see where milkfat percentage is specified on the labelling. 

i was surprised by this as MF % is clearly shown on other dairy products, like cottage cheese, yogurt, milk etc

did i miss something in that micro-print on the butter foil?

Answer

I haven't tried it yet, but I just found this company that makes hand-churned butter from BC organic milk -- http://www.churnbutters.com/

I'll check them out at the farmer's market tomorrow. They sell both plain (salted or unsalted) butter, and flavoured butters.

Answer

This discussion has really intrigued me so yesterday my family (husband, 11 yr old son and I) devised a pseudo-scientific blind taste test of four butters:
1. our control butter - unsalted Foothills creamery butter from Calgary, which is the cheapest one I can find around Vancouver
2. cultured, unsalted butter from Farm House in Agassiz http://www.farmhousecheeses.com/
3. cultured, unsalted butter from Churn, based in Burnaby and made using Avalon cream
http://www.churnbutters.com/
4. unsalted Kerrygold butter

At this point I've yet to find another made-in-BC butter for this comparison. I did notice that Les Amis du Fromage sells an artisan butter from Quebec but I will have to try that some other time.

We cut small slices of a plain white artisan bread and had someone else spread the four kinds of butter on them so that we wouldn't know which we were tasting beforehand. 

The verdict was fairly clear that out of the four, the Foothills butter (not surprisingly) was the least impressive -- it had almost no flavour and was pale and odorless. The Kerrygold, also not surprisingly, was the clear winner in depth of flavour, and was the only butter that had any kind of smell. The colour of the Kerrygold is rich and yellow.

The Farm House butter came very close to Kerrygold in colour; it's lovely and yellow. We also all commented that it had an excellent texture - it was smooth and very pleasing to eat. However, in flavour we actually preferred the Churn butter. It came very close to the flavour of the Kerrygold butter and we all found ourselves wanting to taste the Kerrygold again to compare it to Churn as we felt they were quite close. My son was the only one who was put off by the assertive flavour of the Kerrygold butter; I quote: "There's a weird flavour jumping around in my mouth, and I can't say I like it." His favourite of the four was Churn.

So there you go. I hope this is helpful to you or at least amusing. I am pretty sure most of my off-line friends (not foodies) would think that we were barking mad.

Answer

so - in the interest of informal science - we just bought some butter from Cows Creamery at a local vancouver area independent supermarket - the SEA SALT type that was quite expensive (maybe around 5 dollars for half pound foil wrap) - nothing special - i am not a big fan. It is hyper-salty. the cows at cows must drink the seawater out there in pei. I compared the label to organic butter from USA and it is approx twice the sodium (the serving sizes on PEI vs USA are diff hence the "approx"

no offense to the lovely cows on PEI and the beautiful scenery - but i will not buy the Cows sea salt again - the label is cute, the concept is cute - but the sea salt is way too much to our taste (and we like the popular Lays ripple potato chips - so we do salt)

ps - i just came across this on internet - butter review - i like the photos - 
http://www.theprimalist.com/butter-tasting-cows-creamery-prsident-kerrygold-delitia-rodolphe-le-meunier-and-sierra-nevada/

Answer

I will say if you ever happen across Animal Farm butter from Orwell, Vermont, buy it without question. I had some at the French Laundry a month or so ago, and it was absolutely amazing. For a while I guess Keller was buying all of their butter, but supposedly it's available in small quantities now.

Answer

speaking of Kerry Gold - i bought some Kerry Gold cheddar cheese at safeway store in Oregon - will be interesting to try it - will it be better than my current fav Coastal Cheddar (best price is at costco)

Answer

well - i found some STIRLING butter - very exciting ...

(see the Globe & Mail article linked above, way above - here is the link http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/in-search-of-higher-fat-butter/article547827/?page=all)

 ... at an independent supermarket in Sechelt BC on the Sunshine Coast

the pkg does not say if it's the 84% butter fat version (as cited in article) - it is the round restaurant style butter balls - about $6.59 for a box the size of a 1 pound butter brick - and you get about 24 balls tho i did not count them out.

we compared with Kirkland (Costco) USA organic butter - i'd say similar mouth fat feel - creamy - and for sure the Stirling tastes saltier and according to the pkg, has a higher sodium content (mg) than the Kirkland USA. 

i cannot find the Milk Fat percentage on the box - i think we discussed this in the earlier days of this thread.

so - maybe another independent like Stongs on the west side of the city would have Stirling for a 'butter flight' taste test

ps - if anyone goes up to the sunshine coast (gibsons, roberts creek, sechelt, pender harbour et al) --- the supermarket is called Claytons - and it is in the main mall in Sechelt downtown near the police station and town hall

also - if you're up there on the Sunshine Coast, make a point of stopping at Sharkey's Fish Locker - best fish ever and great fish and chips too - google them for the ph number, location and hours (varies seasonally)http://sharkeysfishlocker.squarespace.com/menu/

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le amis just tweeted that they have a small amount of butter from Normandy in right now.

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Found a new butter and it's lovely. Golden Ears Cheesecrafters. http://goldenearscheeseworks.com/ They make a "cultured" butter, rich and mild, a little less cultured than Farm House which is sometimes a bit too cultured for my taste. Very good value too at around $6 / lb. They have a long list of retailers, not sure if they all have the butter since I bought mine at the factory store. Very good indeed!

Answer

I found some unsalted New Zealand butter, 84% butterfat, at Red Square Bakery in Burnaby - http://rsquare.com/

Sounds like the New Zealand butter that Thomas Haas mentioned in the Globe & Mail article - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/in-search-of-higher-fat-butter/article547827/?page=all

It's $5.37 a pound. It tasted like a rich, solid cream. Really good.

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UPDATE! 84% fat Stirling butters from Ontario are now available at Lower Mainland Whole Foods (spotted at least at Cambie, West Van and Robson). Unfortunately, it is $5.99/0.5 lb.

I will be testing it out with a laminated dough this weekend...

Answer

Kerrygold is cheapo irish butter in da UK, wutz the big deal?

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Kerry Gold butter? Best Cdn brand butter avail in BC?

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