October 29, 2010

Milk From a Goat

I have dabbled in making my own dairy products in the past.  Mainly my efforts have been directed toward fresh rennet-less cheeses (like panir) and yogurt.  Fresh cheeses are great but you get so little cheese for so much cash.  Yogurt is just barely cost effective but works best if you make big batches.  As I don't eat a lot of yogurt this didn't really work to my advantage.  


Of all the hand worked dairy products cheese is my best love.  I've wanted to make cheese at home for years but have been hindered by 1) the difficulty in finding small quantities of rennet locally and 2) the slightly more bothersome need to buy milk from the grocery store (which when buying organic can be expensive) and putting hard time and effort into changing that product into something else that I could easily buy at the grocery store, often for less money than I would spend to make it myself.


As I understand it, cheese making used to be a way of preserving a relatively abundant resource (fresh milk) that would normally not last very long at room temperature (less than a day I figure).  A healthy goat in a milk producing state (i.e.: one that was recently pregnant) will produce up to a gallon of milk a day over a 10-month period, that's about 300 gallons of milk to deal with, from one goat; imagine if you had two, which is recommended because they are social animals.  A single cow may produce up to 8 gallons of milk a day in the same period.   I don't know about you but I don't think I could drink 2 gallons of milk in a day without being sick.


It just so happens that I don't have a goat, or a cow, so I'm in no need of preserving large amounts of high protein, high fat, liquid food stuffs.  I don't need to make cheese, so I don't make it.  I want to, I think it's fun and interesting, but there is absolutely no need (economical or otherwise) for me to do so. 


However a seminal opportunity presented itself to Sarah and I just a little while ago.  One of Sarah's co-workers lives on and often cares for a small farm/school facility in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  One of the benefits of of this arrangement is that she gets to milk the two goats every once in a while, which of course leaves here with more milk than she knows what to do with.  We were invited to participate in the goat milking process in exchange (?) for a gallon of milk.


Sarah was of course much better at it than I was, even though the goat didn't appreciate her chilly hands.  My apprehension is palpable.


It took us 20 minutes to get a little more than a quart of milk, which we promptly threw out because we got it all over our hands before it made it into the bucket.  Bacteria strikes again.  It was a fun experience but it wasn't something I'd like to do two times a day with multiple animals on a long term basis.

In the interest of keeping this post relatively short I'll post the cheese making that took place next time.

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