Storing fuel

Just curious if you put anything in your gas for storage. We need fresh gas when we use it; and do you know how long stored gas should last before it is no good other than to start a burning pile?

Michelle Chapin
Fresno, Ohio

We don’t keep gas long enough to require additives as we use it in our equipment, generators, and tools. If gas is stored for a month or more, it should have Stabil added to it to keep it fresh. And that is only good for about a year. Gas is not a long-lasting fuel, as is propane or diesel fuel. — Jackie

Making butter

I am a hunter/fisher and live a subsistence lifestyle. I get raw milk from my farmsteading neighbor 62 miles away every week. I separate the cream and churn it to make butter. My butter turns out white and crumbly — not smooth, and it will not turn soft and spreadable even in room temp. It will not even stick to the butter knife. How can I make it smooth and spreadable without the “flaky” texture?

Robert Gibson
Cooper Landing, Alaska

I’ve never had hard, crumbly butter, so I don’t know what’s happening with yours. Here’s how I make butter. Maybe you can figure out what’s wrong with yours.

Using fresh, raw milk that has been sitting in the fridge for 2 days in gallon glass jars, I scoop out the cream which has risen to the top. I let it sit in either my churn jar or a quart jar to take the chill off for about half an hour (no longer in the summer or it’ll sour). Then I either churn it in my hand churn or shake the quart jar until the butter “comes.” Then I strain off most of the buttermilk and add ice cold fresh water, shaking or churning to rinse the butter and clump it nicely. I rinse until the water is nearly clear. Then I gently strain off all the water and dump the butter into a bowl. I work the butter with a wooden spoon, pressing out all the water I can so the butter will keep unrefrigerated longer without smelling sour. I add salt to taste, working it in well with the spoon. Then I press into a square plastic refrigerator container and refrigerate until it is solid. To use, I remove from the fridge about half an hour before meals; it softens nicely.

I hope this will help with your problem. Do you freeze your milk? If you do, that may contribute to the problem. — Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. This butter thing is not strange to me. We have a jersey cow, and the butter color and texture seems to be completely related to her diet. In the summer, when her diet is almost all grass with a little grain, butter is very soft and a dark golden yellow. In colder months, when she’s eating hay with no or very little grazing and some grain to supplement, the butter is much paler, and is not soft at room temp. I also find that the butter is too “dry” to stick to the knife. I soften it in the microwave for a couple minutes on the lowest power level to make iit spreadable. Some other things I’ve observed, is that the summer cream has a much better yield. The best I’ve done is 2 pounds from 3 quarts of cream, and in the winter 1&1/2 pounds is a good yield. The butter also comes much quicker with grass fed cream as opposed to the hay fed. I make my butter the same way all year, so my method is consistent, but cream quality seems to be the factor that makes the results so varied.
    Also, we prefer sweet cam butter here, but on occasion, I will allow the cream to ripen a bit more than usual, and the resulting butter is absolutely phenomenal on popcorn.
    Hope this helps, or at least makes you feel better.

  2. You wrote:
    If gas is stored for a month or more, it should have Stabil added to it to keep it fresh. And that is only good for about a year. Gas is not a long-lasting fuel, as is propane or diesel fuel.

    Stabil is a very good product.

    In my opinion,Pri-G is a much better product.

    I was helping a friend (Bob) clean up the ranch HQ his MILaw had just recently given his wife and him. In a tin building we ran across a GI 5 gallon can of gasoline.

    Bob said that the gas may be about 6 or 7 years old. He was with his FILaw when he put a 5 gallon GI gas can full of fresh gas in that shed. His FILaw treated with the long term amount of Pri-G.

    We were running low so Bob re-treated it and filled his riding mower. Very obvious smell of stale gas exhaust but it ran without problem.

    I used it to fill a push mower and it started/ran no problem.

    Pri-G for gasoline and Pri-D for Diesel has a good rep for keeping fuel usable and for making old fuel re-usable.

    My Wife and I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog.

    WB

  3. this might not be the place to put this but my family and i wish you and yours a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR

Comments are closed.