Cream separation - would this work?

[Batt]

Never tried separating goat cream before, and just wondering if this would work...
I needed some more 1 gallon milk jars and had a hard time finding any so I got a couple of Tea jars, the kind that have the spigot on the bottom. Why couldn't I use the spigot to remove the bottom say 2/3 of the milk after a day or so in the refrigerator. Then fill the jar back up with new milk and continue to remove from the bottom for a few days. Wouldn't this concentrate the cream in the top?

[pookshollow]

I believe several people on here have suggested that in the past - so it must work! I just skim off the top of the jars when I`m making cheese (haven`t had enough milk to do that for a while - but soon, soon )

[Leo]

A gravy pouring pot would work as well. The one with the spigot on the bottom. But I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Just be sure not to add warm milk from the goat to chilled milk from the fridge. It gets stinky from bacteria growth when you do that.

[madness]

Our first couple of gallons of milk would have worked using that method but now things seem to be even more homogenized. I did freeze some milk and when that thawed, the cream separated really nicely. I think I'll try that again when I need to!

[chickenista]

Before my friend dried off her cow I was using a baster to suck the cream off the top.
It worked great without disturbing the cream line.

[Nickme23]

I dunno about anybody else but we hardly ever had cream separate till the milk sat in the fridge for a couple days and then it was only about half an inch thick on the top of a 2 qt jar. I would spoon it off for my granola in the mornings mmmmm

Never had enough cream separated to warrant doing anything with it. And that was when we were getting 24 lbs a day from our three does... But man was the milk creamy, just didn't exactly separate willingly.

[Freeholder]

I tried using one of those sun tea jars years ago. In theory it should work, but in reality, you've got to take the spigot apart, and off the jar, in order to clean things thoroughly enough to use with milk. I found that it was impossible to get everything back together without any leaks. Maybe they've improved the jars since then -- if you try it and it works, please let us know!

The amount of cream that rises is going to depend on the breed of goat. Some breeds seem to have cream that rises more easily. The two I've had where that was the case were Kinders and Boer crosses. I suspect the mini-goats might also be in this category, along with Nigerian Dwarfs. If you plan to use the cream for making butter, you can leave the milk in the frig for a week or more, and the cream will still be good for making butter. The only time I've been able to make a good batch of butter from goat cream was after I got back from my daughter's wedding four years ago -- I was gone just over a week, and while I was gone, my sister and my mother did the milking for me, but used hardly any milk! It stacked up in the two refrigerators we had running at the time, and by the time I got home, some of it had started to sour, but the butter I got from all that cream was superb!

Kathleen

[Cheribelle]

Mine really doesn't seperate. I do get "lumps" of cream, but I think it's not enough to bother seperating, and the milk is really nice and creamy if I just shake it up and leave the cream in. Our milker is a LaMancha/Nubian cross.

[issylthesthlia]

Cream separators seem to just be based on a centrifuge system, like vaccines Maybe put milk in a jar and swing it around your head a few times to see if it helps to separate it???

[Alice In TX/MO]

Do that outside only, away from the trees, your house, your car....

[issylthesthlia]

I somehow ended up with two of my parents' old cream separators (antiques), which I guess I'll have to figure out how to use when I actually have milk Still, a site I read said that the first milk separator was a bowl on a spindle... sounds like it should be fairly simple to DIY one!