Raw Milk

[mnjrutherford]

Raw milk can only be sold for pet food in the state of North Carolina.

So, I scored 5 gallons of raw milk today. NOW what? I know what I WANT to do. But I suddenly realize that I have some questions and so far, I haven't found the answers online. Maybe y'all can help?

1. My milk is in a 5 gallon bucket and it made a 10 mile trip home. How long does it need to sit still for the cream to separate?

2. Will it separate better at room temp or in the fridge? (The farmer had it in the fridge when we arrived.)

3. I have heard, though I don't recall where, that there are 2 layers of cream. Which should be used as cream and which for butter?

4. I understand that different breeds of cow provide differing quantities of butterfat. This cow is a "Brown Swiss". About how much of my 5 gallons can become butter?

5. About how much of each gallon of milk is cream?

6. How likely am I to die of excitement waiting for the beer making shop to open so I can get my hands on the stuff I need to make my very first cheese and yogurt?

I was planning to make a bourbon pecan cake this weekend... imagine, I'll be using butter I personally churned!

[ozarklady]

Wow, lots of questions.
I have no experience with cows milk, other than as a kid remembering my mom using it.

With goat milk, we strain the milk before refrigerating, because it is more difficult to strain when the cream rises and thickens.

The amount of cream depends on many variables: cow or goat, etc.
Then breed specifics, some breeds just tend to make more cream in relation to milk.
Then stage of lactation: In early lactation cycle, not alot of cream, cream increases as the amount of milk declines.
The feed fed: Some feed will actually alter the amount of cream, as well as the taste.
The cream will rise, no matter hot or cold.
It takes awhile though, so most folks put the milk in the fridge.

Even with cow's milk I remember mom putting the milk in the fridge overnight.
With goat milk, it is best to wait for 2-3 days to let the cream rise. Yes, raw goat milk is good in the fridge for over 2 weeks, so not a problem.

Raw milk is not the same as pasteurized milk. Raw milk has enzymes in it, that are alive and protect the milk!

Why wait for a beer shop? Make some frying cheese!

Heat some milk to 175 then add vinegar or lemon and it will curdle, then just strain it, and salt it. Batter it and fry it... yum!

I understand your excitement! The more surface area you give milk, the better the cream will rise... like big wide containers (tupperware type) with a good lid.
Without a lid, the cream will get, coagulated, and is harder to deal with.

I just got Kefir grains, and am playing with them, so I definitely understand your excitement, I am thrilled with my Kefir. Boy those little guys sure turn milk into... kefir fast!

[mnjrutherford]

I'm gonna get some 2 gallon rubbermaid tubs for future purchases.

Frying cheese? This sounds like a goody recipe! Can't try it till tomorrow though But trust me! I love fried cheeses. Mozzarella, Greek (not feta), curds... you name it! The beer shop will sell stuff to make other kinds of cheeses, like cheddar and jack.

I've got some milk going right now to make ricotta. I'm gonna get some yogurt started as well. Gotta get some plain yogurt from the store for that one first...

Whey for bread? Gonna try the ricotta whey for that as well! Thanks for all the suggestions! ;D

[Joseph Lofthouse]

We stored our milk in the fridge overnight (or several days) and then skimmed it.

For the most part the cream is heaviest at the top and gets lighter as you go down, but there is still a huge obvious difference between the cream layer and the milk. We never separated the cream into multiple portions. All of it was used for whatever we used cream for.

Our milk from a different breed was about 1/5 cream, and the cream produced about 1/4 butter so 5 gallons of milk might produce around 2 pounds of butter.

[ozarklady]

Jo, you can use the buttermilk and the yogurt cultures from the store.

They will work for a few times. May I suggest, divide them up into ice cube trays, then use a couple cubes per batch of yogurt, and you can save some of your early batches.

But, yogurt and buttermilk cultures will go bad in a few times used. Seems the starter packages make great products for a longer time.

Check out some of the cheese vendors online and try ordering Yogurt and Buttermilk cultures to use, you will like the results more! While you are at it, try some Kefir.

I just got Kefir grains, last weekend, and I am having a blast figuring these guys out!

[mnjrutherford]

Well, I skimmed about a half inch of thick yellow stuff off the top yesterday evening. It sat out most of the day. I made ricotta which I still have hanging. I used some of the whey to make bread (it added a sweet flavor, very interesting!) I have it in a couple of large tubs in the fridge now and the dregs from the bucket I added to the last of the milk in the milk carton.

The fermentation shop opens in a couple of hours and I need sour salt to make dishwasher soap. While there, I'll take a look at what they have for cheese. I found this as an online source of supplies: www.dairyconnection.com/commerce/catalog.jsp?catId=2

I'd like to hear opinions regarding costs and info on this site if you have a chance to check it out.

I'll open the buckets probably tomorrow and see if I can skim it again. I have a hunch I will. Meanwhile I'm in a heated argument with myself about what to do with this glorious cream. Custard? Butter? Ice cream? Ricotta pie? Pie dough for meat pies? ARGH!

[nuts]

I processed around 200 liters goatmilk to 'fresh cheese' a day,during 8 years.

I wouldn't recommend to keep it for a few days,even in the fridge.
Keep in mind that what I'm saying is from a cheese makers point of view.

The more you keep it the more there is risc of bad microorganisms.That can be yeasts that give bubbles in the cheese or worse.
And,if your making cheese,it's better to not cream it off too much.
Cheese without fat is rubbery and tasteless.
I never creamed it off at all.
Anyway the cream of goatmilk doesn't seperate as easily as for cow.

My method:
Put in a cheeseculture as soon as possible,for cowmilk maybe after taking the first cream.Warm it(if necessary) to about 25C.
Then a few drops of rennet/liter (stir well) and leaving it for 36hours
I put it in in the morning and the evening next day the cheese is floating in the whey.
Then I put the cheese,with the whey, in moulds (kind of net or just plastic recipients with small holes) the evening,next day.Turn over when it is half leaked out When they're firm enough salt,and dry them(can be in the wind,in a fly-proof (important!) disposition)
Then let them ripen,not in the fridge,but in a cool place.
Well,you can dry it to different degrees and let it ripen to different degrees.

I just made half leaked out fresh cheese and sold it to commercial cheesemakers.So I'm not very experienced in processing to finished products.

There are many other,more complicated methods,often at higher temp but this is about the most simple.

[mnjrutherford]

That's fascinating! Well I think we might have let it stay out to long because what we poured into the opened jug of milk tastes sorta funny. Not exactly soured, but not very tasty either. I haven't opened either of the other tubs to see what has occurred in them. We haven't been able to leave the house because the car is having "issues". Besides, we have heard that we are flooded it. We'll know for sure later if we are or not. Our neighbor goes a distance away for church and if he can't go to church, we are flooded in our area. Lots more rain is on it's way as well. I'm sending "wet vibes" to Indiana and other dry places!

Anyway, so here we are with potentially soured milk. I have some buttermilk in the fridge, I'm thinking add about a cup to one of the buckets and see what happens? I can do lots of stuff with buttermilk. I can do lots of stuff with sour milk also.

[ozarklady]

Jo, milk is very perishable.
There are actually folks who take ice in a bucket with them to milk to cool it down fast! Not me, I want to strain it while it is warm, then I put it in small quantities to be able to cool it down fast. The gallon sized containers, just don't cool fast enough. Once it is cool, then you can combine it in gallon sized containers. Now, I am talking milk that is 102 degrees, having just exitted the goat.

And you do not skim cream off of milk for cheese, nor let it age before you use it!
Cheese needs to be the freshest milk that you have.

Now the frying cheese does fine out of the milk that you skimmed the cream off of.
But, yogurt, buttermilk and most cultured cheeses do not like skimmed milk.

Even if your milk is clabbered, just freeze it, and use it in cooking!

[mnjrutherford]

Yep, I do believe I've learned my lesson. 5 gallons was a lot for an ignorant person to buy. Ah well. As you say, it's still good for cooking! There will be a TON of biscuits being made here shortly.

[mjc]

Sept 29, 2010 22:40:48 GMT -5 ozarklady said:

And you do not skim cream off of milk for cheese, nor let it age before you use it!
Cheese needs to be the freshest milk that you have.

Now the frying cheese does fine out of the milk that you skimmed the cream off of.
But, yogurt, buttermilk and most cultured cheeses do not like skimmed milk.

Even if your milk is clabbered, just freeze it, and use it in cooking!

A lot of how much you skim/don't skim really depends on the type of cheese you are wanting to make. Some need to be skimmed...some don't.

My typical cheese was half skimmed, rennet added, cut, strained and pressed...a basic white or 'farmer' cheese. It fair to great melting ability (more less dependent on how long it aged), decent flavor and keeping qualities. We use very little to no margarine, so we made lots of butter, so we almost always skimmed everything (we had a Guernsey and at times would get up to 1/3 of a gallon of cream per gallon of milk)...that also made fantastic sour cream (I cheated with that, I'd add a few tablespoons of commercial sour cream (*a good one...if I was doing it now, I'd use Daisy) as a culture.

Also, with cheese making, you may want to get/set up a separate refrigerator just for the cheese. I once made some very nice blue cheese, quite by accident...we had the homemade cheese in the main fridge, which had a chunk of commercial blue in it. What I ended up with compared very favorably with Maytag blue (Maytag blue is probably the best domestic blue available).

[mnjrutherford]

hmmm.. We haven't been able to go back for more of that milk... Not on purpose, just the way things have been falling out. MJC, you didn't cook that "farmer" cheese? That really sounds like the kind of recipe I need.

One thing I've been reading is "cultured" butter and "cultured" cream... I was under the impression that "cultured" is synonymous with "fermented". Plus, everyone here talks about using the cream right out of the cow, pretty much. It is confusing. Can any of you clarify?

[mjc]

No, not really 'fermented'...but using a specific set of bacteria to end up with a consistent product. And fresh cream/milk with the least amount of 'wild' bacteria is best to use (or Pasteurized....but then again the whole purpose of raw milk...). By using the culture on the fresh milk you give that specific set of bacteria a chance to dominate.

The cheese I used to make was basically made by warming the milk (around 100° F), adding the rennet, cutting the curds after several hours (up to overnight), then gently heating again (after the curds were cut...again between 100 and 120°), draining (again, up to 12 hours of draining), adding salt and pressing...

[ozarklady]

Jo, I make two forms of butter, one is sweet cream and the other is cultured butter.
To make the sweet cream I simply keep the milk cold overnight, or maybe 2 and then I skim cream, save it in the freezer until I have enough to make butter, which for me is a pint. Then I bring it to room temp and use my mixer to make butter, which I wash and salt. It is extremely mild in flavor.

I also have milk kefir grains, and use these to culture kefir from, it is sort of a mix of flavors between yogurt and buttermilk, and I drain this and remove alot of whey. Then I use my mixer again, and let it make butter, which is washed, salted and it has a more pungent flavor.

I experimented the other day. I had some milk, that was not actually soured, but it was borderline, you know the point where it will sour easily in some recipes. I was going to pour it out to the dogs, and there was lots of cream on top. I decided, what is soured the cream or the liquid, or both? So I skimmed it, then I fed the skim milk to the dogs, then I made butter out of it. It tastes different from either of the other two butters, and is not a bad taste at all. It has a more "depth"? quality to it, not goaty, not sour, just more flavor.

I need to explain, I milk daily, so there is no point at all in keeping milk that is "borderline".
And I have kefir milk for making things that required a sour milk. We get more milk than we need, and my cheese making has simply been a bust this year, frying cheese is the only one that has worked. And one serving of that per month is plenty, so still too much milk.