Made more butter today

[Oat Bucket Farm]

I skimmed and saved the cream off the top of the milk for four days and then made butter.

This is what my girls did.

[The Tin Mom]

How did you skim it? How did you save it? I would love to make butter, but have never been able to get the skimming part down!

Looks amazing! Yummy!

[chewie]

how much cream did you have??? that looks like a lot of butter, yum!!!

[Pony]

How many gals are you milking, Oatie?

[prairiedog]

We are milking three but only two contributed to this. We have tons of cream this year. Don't know if it's the replamin or the kelp. We just let it set in the fridge overnight and then skim with a small ladle such thick cream. This was four days woth of skimming. Over two pounds.

[Pony]

THinkin' I should pick up both replamin and kelp...

[LFRJ]

Nice. I have made butter several times in my old Dazy churn I bought at the antique store. Works fine. Since goat milk butter is pure white, the first time I made it I thought, awe heck, I'll just fix that with a little food coloring. Cranked out the butter, reached up in the cupboard, turns out all I had was purple.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I would Love to try making butter this year! Do you have a churn or could it be done in a kitchen aid mixer?

[Oat Bucket Farm]

We put ours a pint at a time into the food processor. I leave the regular blade in but set it on shred. A few minutes later, viola! I use a rubber spatula to get it off the sides and the lid.

Yep this was two goats that did this. It all started a week ago or so when my kids were complaining because of tons of cream in the milk. We always give the milk a gentle swirl to mix the usual small amount of cream on top into the milk. But this year, such an action resulted in large chunks of cream floating.

So I grabbed a jar and used my small ladle to skim across the top. What I came away with was a ladle full of thick, beautiful cream. It only takes three or four days to get enough for this much butter.

To say I'm loving it is an understatement. Missy puts the most cream in. And little Pixie, even though she is half Mancha and half Saanen, she still puts out a lot of cream.

Belly Bean is just finally getting the colostrum out of her milk, so we will have to see what happens with hers.

I will say that when Missy and Pixie first came home, there wasn't this much cream. I am thinking maybe it is the Replamin or the kelp or a combo of the two. Or a serious streak of creamy luck.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I always let the milk set in the fridge till the next day then skim the cream off cause dh doesn't like it in the milk. I use it in my coffee then but I really don't need it in my coffee.

[aart]

Nice!!!
So you got 2 pounds of butter out of how many cups/quarts or cream?

[prairiedog]

We had about three quarts of cream all together I think

[The Tin Mom]

Are you feeding chaffhaye(sp). too? My vet told me not to use the Replamin, we have too much selenium here (her husband does soil testing and has never found a place with a selenium deficiency in our county) so she was worried about the selenium in it.

Would the chaffhaye be part of it? Wishful thinking here, since I can do the kelp (my girls love it, Snow made herself sick on it once so I have to be careful and give it to them individually and not together - Snow snarfs hers and then runs everyone else off and eats theirs, too!) and I can look at the chaffhaye, I am pretty sure there are dealers close.....

[prairiedog]

We haven't gotten our chaffhay yet it will be delivered first part of April. They are still on alfalfa pellets

[Oat Bucket Farm]

We give the kelp on the stand top dressed on their grain.

[mekasmom]

I have never gotten goat milk to separate well to be able to skim a lot off of it. It is so different than cow's milk in that way. I thought you had to have a mechanical separator to do it.

[Oat Bucket Farm]

I would love to have a separator but they are expensive and I'm trying to get cheese supplies put together so I can start cheesing.

[trnubian]

That is crazy! That is a ton of cream. I would love to be able to make butter right now. I am having to buy milk to supplemet all the kids. 6 kids and 2 does is pushing it since they are little piggies. BUT 3 are leaving by this weekend so more milk for me.

[Oat Bucket Farm]

We have three does milking and we only brought home the three babies, so we don't have too many to feed. We made a simple vinegar cheese yesterday and we have a gallon of yogurt making today (thank you Alice for taking the scary out of yogurt making by telling how simple it is!). Skimmed more cream today too. We will be making butter again in a couple more days.

[LFRJ]

I got a lot out of Fankenhausers cheese page. If you haven't, it's a nice primer (google it) - and took the fear out of yogurt making for me. He also has a cobbled together a press for farmers cheese - crude, but probably works. I've done well by the soft cheeses - haven't tried the harder stuff yet because of equipment and a set up to age it in. As I understand it, temp and humidity must be tightly controlled.
Sometimes the biggest obstacle for me is understanding. The chemistry of it all evades me, and mozzerella has been a big disaster too many times. (sigh)