How long can butter keep?

Hi- It takes me 2-3 months to use a pound of butter. I usually use margarine on my toast. I have a pound of butter that expired three months ago that I haven't opened up yet. I am almost done with the previous pound of butter. I did some searching online, and one website said I should pitch the butter. What does anybody here think? I have another pound of butter in the freezer, and I got a personalized deal on butter at Jewel this week for $.99. I like butter, but I have a genetic cholesterol problem, and I just had to increase my statin medication, and so that is why I use Blue Bonnet on my toast. I use butter when I am making scrambled eggs, and a few other times when I am cooking or the rare occasion when I am baking bread. I occasionally make muffins, but that is all the baking I usually do. I usually use olive or organic canola oil when I am cooking. I hit all of these really good deals on butter at Jewel that are too tempting, and I should probably pass on the $.99 one I have right now. Thanks, Nancy

Hi,

Anecdotal data here: A long time is my experience.

I usually have maybe 20 pounds of butter in the freezer. If the butter is not sealed well, over time it can absorb off putting odors from the other products in the freezer. I will still use it, but not as a spread on toast.

If the freshness date is an issue for you, then give your butter to a neighbor who will use it. It does not deserve to go in the garbage.

Regards,
Cathy2

We routinely have a couple pounds of butter in the freezer. We pull out a stick at a time to use in the fridge. When we need more for baking or cooking, we may pull out another stick as well. Although we don't go through butter very fast--I'd guess a stick can last a month--we have never once had an issue of any kind.

I also am a sucker for bargain butter. I fairly often keep boxes of butter in my drinks and cheese fridge for 4-6 months. Other than apples in fall, everything in it is sealed so no odor transfer. Never had butter go rancid. Sometimes the color becomes a bit more yellow on the surface.

I think it lasts a long time. It can go rancid but you would know by tasting it. I recommend putting it in a zip loc bag before freezing it to prevent it from absorbing flavors. I have kept butter in my refrigerator for months without issue. I also dropped cream in my coffee and now have to use Coffeemate instead and I use the Land O Lakes butter spread with the green lid. I find it tastes the most like butter (there is some in there). My cholesterol has dropped twenty points. I would never be able to tolerate margerine on my toast. The Coffeemate has to be done because the cream also bothers my stomach.

I always have two sticks of butter in a covered glass dish on the counter, another couple of sticks in the fridge, and a couple of pounds in the freezer. I have never ever ever in my life had a problem with butter going bad or absorbing odors (but then I haven't tried to store 20 lbs of it at a time), so I don't bother putting the freezer butter in plastic bags; I just leave it in the cartons.

Although I only buy unsalted butter and have never had a a problem with it going bad on the counter or in the fridge or in the freezer, I read recently that salted butter lasts longer than unsalted in the first two scenarios and that it may be that salted butter is produced specifically for those purposes, i.e., with the expectation that people will leave it out on the counter and/or keep it refrigerated rather than frozen. News to me; I thought salted vs salted was just a taste preference.

I lived once for a time with a sister who warned me that her husband was NOT okay with leaving butter out on the counter. (I realize this is a controversial issue; there may already be an LTH thread on it.) I said I could understand that, as he's from New Orleans. She looked at me for a moment as if I was about to say something disparaging about people from New Orleans. I explained that I just meant that if I lived in a hotter climate than Chicago I might not leave butter out on the counter either, at least in the summer.

Butter remains edible a lot longer than one might think. Kevin Thornton, a Michelin-starred Dublin chef, sampled some 4000 year-old butter found buried in an Irish peat bog (I think it was labeled 'Best Before 1000 BC'). Apparently it was good enough that he tried to make his own.

In 2014 Irish Independent wrote:"If I was to have a food trend, my food trend would be bog butter. We had some two weeks ago and it was nearly 4,000 years old. I buried some butter in the bog, and I’ll do some research and go back in six months and check and see what stage before the butter turns."

For more information on bog butter, have a look at this Smithsonian Magazine article.

I have always used a Butter Bell for keeping butter on the counter. We use about a quarter pound every week just for bread or toast. The bell keeps it cool but spreadable.

I admit that I’m a butter snob. Remember flying? When in France with a rental apartment we’d raid the grocery for real French butter dirt cheap (the stuff they sell in the US in crap) freeze it and put it in our checked bags. It would arrive home still mostly frozen and would last forever in our freezer. Similarly sea salt for a Euro a kilo but that’s another story.