When is milk consumable?

[I luv herfrds]

I use a high speed. When it starts to thicken up make sure you start to fold it over so the cream will go to the bottom. You will hear it change in sound when the butter starts to form. It will be these little tiny clumps. I use a hand held strainer with really tiny holes to pour the buttermilk off.
No it is not sour, that is cultured buttermilk. It will surprise you on it's flavor.

 

[Putangitangi]

My machine has two speeds and a pulse option. I whip my very thick cream on the first (slower) speed and it starts to turn in less than a minute. Then I pulse it, so I can judge when the butter milk is separating out, then I add a little cold water, give it a few more turns, then pour off the buttermilk. I don't need to use a strainer because the butter is a huge solid clump and I get about half a glass of buttermilk. It has an interestingly fresh and very rich flavor. I only like a little of it, but my partner seems to like it occasionally. Otherwise it goes out to the hens most of the time.

I suspect that if you over-beat the butter, you start introducing too much air and liquid back into it. The first time I tried, the product looked a bit like some sort of weird dairy-whip. You don't want to go that far.

 

[I luv herfrds]

I do not add water to my butter. It whips up like whipping cream and I just let it continue until the sound changes and the butter forms.
I would use the old wooden paddle butter churn I have but the paddles smell rank so I just use it for decoration.

 

[Putangitangi]

You don't wash the buttermilk out?

 

[chippie]

You don't wash the buttermilk out?

ditto ^ You should always wash the butter after churning. It really does affect the taste and how long it keeps.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Yeah I wash my butter after I pour the buttermilk off.

 

[Putangitangi]

I wash mine by continuing to mix water through the butter, not just washing off the outside, so I am adding water to the butter at that point. But the later working with the butter pats/paddles, gets it all out again. I've seen some people's method of squeezing it in a mesh bag, but I'm not convinced that gets all the water out, because of the physical nature of the fat.

Buttermilk itself is not bitter, but it will make butter go off quite quickly if not completely removed.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Ok I understand what you are saying now.

I put on my EMS gloves and put the butter in a bowl of cold water and work it. I continue to change the water. I just keep squeeze and working it until the water is clear. I have also done it under running water.
I like your idea though. Might try making butter with my Kitchen Aid mixer instead of my blender.

 

[Putangitangi]

The first time I tried making butter, I worked it under cold water in a bowl and that worked alright, but the mixer method gets it really clean without quite so much physical effort on my part.

Yesterday I made two lots, one from cold cream and one from room temp. The room temp butter was much easier to get the water out of in the last part of the process - it was very soft by the time I'd worked it, but that made it easier to smear between the pats to release the water. I could still pat it into nice shapes for wrapping afterwards, with the smooth sides of the pats.

 

[rosehaven]

Well made butter yesterday ... well more like whip butter but it was still good. next time should be better.

 

[rosehaven]

Do any of you make cheese? If so which kinds and how? I'm loving the milking thing and may upgrade to a true dairy breed at some point. The milking is very relaxing.

 

[I luv herfrds]

I've made cheese. Mozzarella and ricotta.
I used the Pioneer Woman mozzarella recipe. Simple and easy.
You can google recipes.
Look up Cheese in the Recipe page on this site.

 

[Putangitangi]

My partner does all the cheese-making and has had some success with some, but he's having difficulty with the longer-maturing cheeses to date.

He made Mozzarella in big quantities in the first year (from the Angus milk) and we're still eating that out of the freezer and it's still good. His ricotta is good and is lovely in pizza bases and various other recipes. He makes very nice feta, has made some lovely Camembert-style cheeses and recently tried Fontina (Italian semi-hard). The Edams aren't smelling that good, but they look very pretty in their wax.

I bought him a spare fridge and we wired in a brewing thermostat to keep the temperature right. But the weather's been really cold and the fridge is in an uninsulated shed, so it's a bit colder than it should be at the moment.

The latest change is the addition of gloves, which is hopefully removing the probable addition of some extra unwanted bacterial cultures, which may have been interfering with things. You can wash your hands a lot and still not be clean enough for cheese, I suspect - at least if you're also doing a lot of outdoor farm-related work as well.

Best book so far found: Mary Karlin; Artisan Cheese Making at Home.

 

[rosehaven]

Where do you get your renen(?) for the mozzarella?

 

[Putangitangi]

Here it's sold in the supermarket, but we also get it directly from a cheesemaking supplies vendor, where we also get the cheese cultures, molds, etc.

 

[chippie]

I order my cheese making supplies from Austin Homebrew

 

[regolith]

The latest change is the addition of gloves, which is hopefully removing the probable addition of some extra unwanted bacterial cultures, which may have been interfering with things. You can wash your hands a lot and still not be clean enough for cheese, I suspect - at least if you're also doing a lot of outdoor farm-related work as well.

Best book so far found: Mary Karlin; Artisan Cheese Making at Home.

I totally agree with the hygiene thing - I made several batches of cheese from an early calver a few years ago, without paying excessive attention to hygiene (I'd been around cheese-makers before so knew the basic protocol). As soon as calving started for real every single batch failed, and the only thing I could attribute it to was the extra bacteria floating around me and the working area from handling more cows and calves every day.
I can't boast of that cheese - the fresh curd tasted good but I couldn't keep the rats and birds off it while it was maturing, so it all came to nothing. A little bit tempted to try again now that I've got a milking cow, two weeks till calving starts, and a vermin-proof container.
I had to go to my nearest city for rennet - the smaller stores won't get it in. Still have some but I don't know if it keeps for that long, the cow who slipped that year was only three or four then and she's coming nine this year.

 

[dun]

Back when we did the goat dairy deal our second biggest seller was yogurt. Cheese was third and I hated doing butter because you needed a seperator to get the cream out to make it and all we had was a hand churn.

 

[rosehaven]

I'll see if the store has any. where would they keep it? Like near the dairy or some place else?

 

[chippie]

you can make your own yogurt by using a live culture unflavored yogurt as your starter. Dannon plain yogurt will work.
You may have to order your rennet online. I don't know where you live, but most grocery stores do not carry it. regolith lives in New Zealand. I live in Texas.
This is where I order my cheese making supplies. Quick service and you can't beat the shipping price.

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/index.php?cPath=178_361

Their mozzarella cheese making kit is an easy way to get started, especially if you do not have a lot of milk.

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