This book was recommended on this sub previously: Make the Bread, Buy the Butter. It is.. ahem... available in other forms if you can't pay for it. Details what things can be made from scratch, and if it's worth it to bother or not.
There's a book called Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. It has 120 recipes in it and she goes through what you should put time into making from scratch and what you should just buy. Here is the book on amazon. It seems to be available on kindle too. I'd highly recommend it, even just to read through. Hope that helps!
It is indeed buttermilk.
In the pre-refrigeration days, cream would often begin to ferment naturally, then churned into butter and buttermilk.
Today, we make cultured buttermilk by adding live lactic acid bacteria to the buttermilk, which produces the tang that you are missing in your homemade buttermilk.
You can simulate the effects cultured buttermilk will have in recipes by adding some distilled white vinegar or lemon juice to the buttermilk. Otherwise, you are better off purchasing cultured buttermilk from the store. It has a very long shelf life in the fridge, compared to your homemade buttermilk.
Also, I would suggest reading the book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" and consider if this is even worth your time and money.
I have way too many cook books and I use probably 2 or 3, but some go in and out of that 2 or 3 rotation. My absolute favorite is Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
I like to do things from scratch, within reason. This book does a good job breaking things down in terms of time and cost as well as how different it will turn out
There's a great book called Bake the Bread Buy The Butter and this question is the whole premises. The author makes and buys all kinds of stuff then gives you a cost and effort analysis of what's better, buy or make. Kimchi, absolutely make it. Corn nuts, nah, buy it and save yourself all the forearm burns.
This book "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods" is fascinating if you're interested in this. This woman tried all these recipes from scratch to come up with her conclusions.
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
There's a book for that!
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
Sorry! Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt-ebook/dp/B004T4KXMS
I scrolled to find this comment. It is an exceptional book about when to draw the line between making and buying. Here's the book if you want it.
There's a book out there and forgive me if someone already said it but Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is a good resource for this exact question.
There’s a book called Make the Bread, Buy the Butter that specifically goes into this topic!
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter? I remembered seeing it in an AskReddit post.