Bulletproof Coffee: how to blend butter well

Question

When making Bulletproof Coffee, is there a good way to blend the butter or coconut oil well to prevent the oil floating?

Answer 1

I have been drinking Bulletproof coffee since 2012 now, so made a few of them. Originally I made a BIG mistake of just stirring butter in the coffee with coconut oil or MCT Oil. You can see how horrible the oil slick looked with an old video I did years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rap-spa3RfI

What I have found is that you basically need a high speed blender. Vitamix or Blendtec are two brand names Dave has suggested. My wife and I use one called Magimix and it revolutionised how the coffee looks and tastes. So speed is the key. I haven't found a difference by adding the butter or oil in a certain order or way into the blender.

Answer 2

I think there are 2 questions here. The first is why oil and water don't mix. The second is why oil rises, as opposed to sinking or staying in place.

First question. There is an old saying in chemistry that like dissolves like. What this means is that a substance tends to dissolve in another substance if the molecules of the 2 substances have similar electric dipole moments. Think of an electric dipole like you think of a magnet. The magnet has a north and south pole, and south end of one magnet is attracted to the north end of another magnet, and vice versa. The electric dipole has a positively charged end and a negatively charged end. The magnitude of the positive charge can be greater than that of the negative charge, or vice versa. The difference between the magnitudes of the 2 charges and the distance between them determines the moment or strength of the dipole. In general, dipoles with similar strengths dissolve in each other more readily than dipoles with very different strengths. Oil (as in hydrocarbon-based oils) and water have very different dipole moments, so oil and water do not readily dissolve in each other.

The second part of the answer has to do with a force called the buoyancy force. This is the force that causes some objects to float in water. Suppose you want to dissolve 1 cubic cm of oil in water. For this to happen, the oil has to displace 1 cubic cm of water. The buoyancy force on the oil is equal to the weight of that 1 cubic cm of water. Oil is less dense than water, so 1 cubic cm of oil weighs less than 1 cubic cm of water. Therefore, the upward buoyancy force on the oil, which is equal to the weight of water displaced, is greater than the downward force of gravity on the oil, also known as the weight of the oil. This inequality of forces causes the oil to rise in the water. If the oil were denser than the water, the oil's weight (the downward force) would exceed the buoyancy force (the upward force), and the oil would sink in the water.

Answer 3

The times I have made it, I have used a blender (something similar to a bullet). You won't ever get it completely mixed in, and it will separate, but you can get a pretty good dispersal to start by using a high powered blender.

Answer 4

While I haven't fallen in love with BPC, I've played around with it while testing out some of our most recent product releases at the coffee company where I work. It's true that you need a higher speed blend than you can get by simply stirring the coffee.

That said, I've had excellent results with my Kitchenaid stick blender, similar to this one. Depending on the texture you're looking for, you can blend it shorter until the butter seems suspended in the coffee, or longer until it's light and frothy. The two most important things in my experience are very hot coffee (you don't want it congealing before you drink) and good grass-fed butter.

Answer 5

Saw a YouTube video somewhere that said mix collagen powder into the keto coffee to prevent oil / butter from rising to top.