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I tried just keeping it in a tightly-closed container in the refrigerator, but soon it was moldy.

I've read this question, which seems to indicate that ordinary butter should keep safely for weeks at fridge-temperatures... But my preparation is hardly ordinary butter.

My technique is very simple: 200g butter in boiling water and 30g of chopped herb (a mixture of leaves and buds) An hour of boiling, strain the herb with a filter gauze and put the liquid in the refrigerator until the fat solidifies and can be easily separated from the water. (The herb is in my case cannabis.)

Freezing is something I've considered trying, but would this affect the texture, or otherwise damage flavor?

Community
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  • if you could include a reference to, or short description of, the technique you used to produce this butter, it would help the question considerably. If you purchased it, you may want to contact your supplier first - if they're legit, they should be able to provide you with information regarding the composition and suggested storage method. – Shog9 Sep 23 '11 at 19:38
  • [Relevant meta discussion](http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1227/should-cooking-with-drugs-legal-or-illegal-questions-be-on-topic/) – Shog9 Sep 24 '11 at 04:45
  • @knives My technique is very simple: 200g butter in boiling water and 30g of chopped herb (a mixture of leaves and buds) An hour of boiling, strain the herb with a filter gauze and put the liquid in the refrigerator until the fat solidifies and can be easily separated from the water. –  Sep 25 '11 at 16:09
  • First off, welcome to Seasoned Advice! I've edited these details into the question itself: we expect questions here to provide sufficient detail for others to recognize, or perhaps even reproduce the problem being addressed. As you can see, we're [busy discussing](http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/1227/should-cooking-with-drugs-legal-or-illegal-questions-be-on-topic/) whether or not questions on this topic can be asked here, and what form they should take. If you've anything useful to contribute there, feel free to jump in. – Shog9 Sep 25 '11 at 17:07
  • Ok, thank you.I just want to know how is lifetime of an herb butter in the freezer. I mean how long before to be ruined. I do not think the type of grass used is really relevant. Maybe I should have asked for tobacco butter? –  Sep 25 '11 at 17:17
  • I've no idea what snuff butter is, but in general yes, you can ask how long a food can reasonably stored without problems (the hang-up here appears to be "cannabis"). FWIW, it'll be slightly different depending on the average temperature of your freezer (< 0F == longer) and whether or not it auto-defrosts. – Shog9 Sep 25 '11 at 17:24
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    If you are melting the butter in boiling water, the problem could be that the increased water content of the butter would allow it to mold faster. You might have better luck if you used a regular clarified butter process, which should actually increase the shelf life. – SourDoh Jul 31 '13 at 21:27
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    I'm going to reopen this, because I think there's not really anything inherently nonculinary about it, and the ensuing discussion on meta was generally in favor of questions like this being left open. – Cascabel Jul 31 '13 at 22:39

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Butter, even a compound butter like this, shouldn't have enough moisture to get moldy easily. I think the issue is that you are clarifying the butter in boiling water, which could be causing pockets of moisture in the finished product. You could try melting the butter in a pan without water, adding the herbs, and then allowing the water based part at the bottom to cook off. Once that has happened, you can strain and chill the butter as usual.

SourDoh
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First of all, salted butter should preserve the herbs for longer, whether it is stored in the fridge or in the freezer. I would recommend using salted butter if you are freezing your herb butter.

Putting the liquid mixture that you have created (after you have strained it) into an ice cube tray in the freezer to store it works well. If you do plan to store it in the freezer, wait for it to solidify in the fridge first. (This takes about 3 hours) Once it is solid, cover it tightly with wax paper and store it in the freezer. Storing the herb butter in an ice cube tray also makes it easier to take out a small amount of the butter at a time.

FYI, when I make my butter with additives, (herbs, honey, etc.) I soften my butter on the counter and, depending on how much butter I am planning to make, I put the butter and the added herbs into a little Cuisinart blender and mix the two together or i bix the two together in a little bowl with a fork.

Hope this helps!

werdna3232
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