8 gallons

[comfortablynumb]

Every day.
What do I do with 8 gal of milk a day?
I skim it all, process out @ 5# of Mozzarella bricks a day, vacuum bag them and into the deep freeze.
Cottage cheese for those who eat the vile stuff.
Yogurt when I have the time and room to do it.

What else can I do with this cursed stuff so I dont have to throw it out to make room for more?

Yes the dogs and cats are getting fat.  The elderly cows wont drink it. No I dont reprocess the whey into more cheese.

Suggestions?

No the neighbors dont want any milk to drink, and everyone else "doesnt drink milk".

Go figure.

[shellymay]

Start offering neighbors the finished product instead of liquid milk, surely there are some hungry
people in your area can you use it to barter
something else?

[feather]

If you are comfortable, and you make your motz very rich, and you don't mind waiting until the weather is freezing, so the shipping will stay cold.
I'll barter for 10 lbs of it, we'd want to have it shipped (guessing you are midwest, as we are) by Spee-dee Delivery which quotes a shipping rate of about $6.50 for 10 lbs. What do you think? PMing you.

[okiemomof3]

you can also skim off the top cream and make butter (super easy to do in a mixer) and freeze the butter milk for baking.

You can make ricotta cheese from the stuff left over from the mozzerella making.

i would try to sell or barter several gallons a day for either money or other things you may need like produce, veggies, services, etc.

I bet once you get a base of a few people interested in your milk you will have more people than you can provide milk for

[manygoatsnmore]

You can also use some of the raw milk thinned with water as a spray for pastures. It helps the bacteria in the soil, which is what really makes your soil fertile. I see no reason it wouldn't also work on your garden soil. Use it to water the place you'll be growing tomatoes next year - the calcium will help prevent blossom end rot, which is a calcium deficiency. Use it to spray on anything you have that is prone to powdery mildew or black spot to prevent outbreaks. Make paint with it. Lots of things to use it for!

[comfortablynumb]

I make butter off the skim, the mozz doesnt form well with whole milk.
Nobody I have offered milk or cheese to wants it. Go figure.

Cant sell it, thats illegal. Wont deal with raw milk. Raw milk will kill you.

I tag the raw gallons with red tape I tell WIllow "red is like the color of your stools if you drink it".

Yes I am probably over cautious. Better that than dead.

[themotherhen]

I wish you were close to us, I would buy milk in a heartbeat!!!! With 4 boys, and my husband and I both drinking milk and milk for cooking, we could easily go through 2 gallons/day. Almost $200 just for milk in a month. And I have gallons and gallons of tomatoes!!!!! And bell peppers. I also have bean, corn, bell pepper and tomato seed. I also sew, bake bread and can :-)

[shin]

I think you could try more variety in the cheese department!

[shellymay]

Okay, so none of the suggestions work for your area, last things I can say is sell one of the
cows as a milk cow so you don't have so much going to waste, LOL I know that is out of the
question....

So that leaves my LAST suggestion, you both are not interested in pigs and feeding milk to piglets
so why not go and buy some bottle beef calves and raise them to wean age, maybe your market
there is interested in MEAT more then cheese? could be a good money income doing this.


   Hint hint!!!!

[willowgirl]

The calves would turn into pets here and then we would have more cows to feed!
And ... all of that milk is coming out of one cow, our Marianne, who freshened in August.

I've told Numb that at 60-ish days in milk, she's nearing the peak of her lactation, and at 5 months should start falling off a bit. Hopefully he can hold on until then ... he's looking pretty haggard. lol

If there's anyone in SW PA who needs some milk, hit us up ... we can't sell it but we sure could give it away.

Good idea to dump it in the garden ... better than letting it go to waste. We haven't dumped very much so far, but, well, it's hard to keep up.

I may talk to my boss and see if he'd like some of the surplus to feed the calves. Milk prices are low right now, and I know he's looking to economize every way he can.

[comfortablynumb]

We dont wanna raise pigs and calves to be killed and eaten.

[Melissa]

When we get extra I just freeze half- gallons of milk for those times when the cow is not producing so much. You can even make cheese and yogurt from it after it has been frozen and thawed.

[Awnry Abe]

I've heard of mixing it in water and spraying it on dead soil to improve microbial conditions. I can't remember the ratio.

[manygoatsnmore]

Oct 2, 2015 0:17:21 GMT Awnry Abe said:

I've heard of mixing it in water and spraying it on dead soil to improve microbial conditions. I can't remember the ratio.

I remember it as 1 part milk to 20 parts water, but I'm sure it can be more milk without a problem, since the idea here is to use up more milk.

[Deleted]

Could you sell it? If you lived by me I would buy it.

[willowgirl]

I think it's illegal here, and honestly, I'd be happy to give the stuff away for free! It makes me sad to think there are children somewhere going hungry when we have more milk than we know what to do with.

The lady whose house I cleaned today expressed interest in taking some. She actually asked me about it, so I know she wasn't just being polite. LOL! It made me sad because she said her youngest (who isn't 2 yet) still drinks milk. I guess her two older kids (I think the oldest is in second grade) no longer partake?? That seems so bizarre to me ... I grew up drinking milk at every meal. Two years ago, I had to go to the dentist, as I'd cracked a tooth chomping on ice. The dentist looked at my teeth and said, "I'll bet you drink a lot of milk, don't you?"

I said, "Yeah, I work on a dairy, and besides, I've always liked the stuff. Why?"

She said she could tell from my wisdom teeth. Apparently, by the time wisdom teeth starting coming in -- in the late teens and early 20s -- most young adults are no longer consuming much milk. So their wisdom teeth are weak (lacking calcium) with thin enamel. They decay rapidly and have to be pulled. Mine, OTOH, looked like my other teeth. (BTW, I had never had to have a cavity filled until I broke that tooth!)

I just don't see how you can grow kids with strong teeth and bones without feeding them milk!

OK, down off my soapbox now. lol

[comfortablynumb]

I have decided to make butter oil instead of making and freezing a ton of butter bricks.

The oil is shelf stable, and if frozen will last forever.

Plus instead of working the water out of the butter, forming it and then having to vac bag that for storage, I can just dump the drained butter ball right into a pot and cook it down to oil. Its a lot less messy.

[tab]

What is butter oil?

Do you have egg chickens? Clabbered milk is something they will eat. Once you put some out and it clabbors, don't wash the dish much, the residue helps to quickly clabbor the next batch.

A pet pig is not the worst pet one could have

[mamahen]

Animal friends in Pittsburgh has the cutest little potbelly piglet

[comfortablynumb]

Clarified butter... Ghee is the hipsters call it.
A handy skill to learn, for one Ghee/butter oil/clarified butter is shelf stable like coconut oil. It will keep at room temp for a long time, and in the fridge (where it turns into a yellow hard wax)pretty much forever.

Also, if one is producing medical marijuana concoctions, Clarified butter/ghee/butter oil is an ideal solvent for the drug bearing resin. Once a batch has been made, and a dosage worked out you have literally a jar of medication ready and able to be added to almost any food imaginable.

But now I have a fridge full of yello bricks, and a person can only use so much of this stuff so we have switched to using the cream for ice cream, which wont last long around here.

We are currently having dinner which consists of large bowls of vanilla ice cream.

We are gonna be as fat as the cow by spring.
Oddly, all this milk cheese and butter has made me lose weight. The old Adkins effect I suppose.

[comfortablynumb]

Oct 16, 2015 19:15:35 GMT tab said:

Once you put some out and it clabbors, don't wash the dish much, the residue helps to quickly clabbor the next batch.

I know, Indy the dog outside has a big gunky milk bowl... He comes back to it all day as the cream rises to the top and licks it off, then whats left often turns to lumpy gunk in a while which he then eats.

He's as old as dirt and getting toothless, so daily milk keeps him healthy and fat.

[Otter]

I have a good friend who also does not want to raise pigs, and who also has more milk than they can use.

They give me milk or whey 2 or 3 times a week, and a couple of times a year a magical fairy comes to their house and leaves a big box of white wrapped packages.

It works out beautifully, as even though I've got my own goats, I never have enough milk for cheese or livestock - we drink too much! I'm going to have to get a cow one day. If you're not vegetarian, perhaps you could make a similar arrangement.

[tab]

The Adkins effect, milk and loosing weight, hmmmm. Twice now, whilst milking my own cow, I have dropped weight. Weight which was on a first name, intimate, never leave me, name basis with me. Sure did not happen w/store bought milk. The cats, most of them, can drink this and not get the poohs, unlike the purchased stuff.
Ghee is something I know very little about. I did not know it is shelf stable which means I gotta do some research. I suspect it may have many uses. Ohh,I love research, now for some time!

[comfortablynumb]

Apparently you can store ghee in the fridge for years with no deterioration. I have found it is an excellent frying oil.

[Raeven]

Oct 28, 2015 1:51:30 GMT comfortablynumb said:

Apparently you can store ghee in the fridge for years with no deterioration. I have found it is an excellent frying oil.

That's true. I've never understood why people try to home can butter when they can just make ghee. I don't even store it in the fridge. It will keep very well in a well sealed (not vacuumed, just sealed) earthen container for 9 months. That's for as long as I've kept it around, but it might keep for longer still. A lot more flavorful than regular butter, too.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2015 17:29:22 GMT comfortablynumb said:

I skim it all, process out @ 5# of Mozzarella bricks a day, vacuum bag them and into the deep freeze.

Numb,

I would be interested in your recipe/process for making the mozzarella cheese bricks.  I was just researching it a bit and there are many contradictory and confusing different methods posted on the internet.  I would rather have a recipe from someone that has used their recipe more than once and to whom I can readily complain if my attempt does not work out well. 

Through my research I learned that mozzarella and provolone cheese are not much different from each other.  Seemingly the provolone just requires an additional ingredient and a bit more time to age.  Maybe you can make some provolone cheese?  

[comfortablynumb]

Well they say the only difference in proper moz and prov is the moisture content.

But they also make it all with cultures and enzymes too, Which I don't.  I have a barbarian's palate, so if it tastes like mild cheese and melts thats all I care about.

However, if all the difference is is in the moisture content, then I have a freezer full of everything from moz to provalone.... and some bricks of dry stuff that melts but is only good for grating. I call those fails graters for obvious reasons. I did discover that the reason these fails happen is the acid level, too much acid and you end up with lumpy curd that wont stretch but it will solidify in a mold/bowl of your choice and chill to a solid mass. Good for grating and melting, unless you like really dry cheese.

I suppose if you were to press such a brick of fail, youd have a hard cheese wheel. I dunno. I dont have a proper press to try it.

There are 2 threads at HG where you can see my trial and error in mozz cheeses of various kinds.

www.hearthandgardens.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=812
www.hearthandgardens.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1436

You have to register to access those threads now, as I have cut all access back to members only. Its less work security wise and it keeps the bots and spam out.

A lot of the issues ended up being simply the milk itself, and thats a matter of trial and error to get the amount of acid just right.

The process is very simple, but like anything else, its something you have to develop a feel for when ya do it.

For 3 gal of milk the cream has been skimmed off of (which isnt really proper skim milk it ends up more like 2% unless you are using raw milk which will separate much more completely than pasteurized for some reason.) I do this simple process;

Heat the 3 gal to 60F and add 4tsp-4 1/2 of citric acid you have dissolved in a cup of hot water. Stir well and continue to raise the heat slowly on med high or so. At this point I have figured out a trick to determine if you have sufficient acid level or too much. As you stir it at this stage examine the milk. If has glitter sized flecks of curd/clot in it, you have just about the right acid level. If there is no flecks you didnt add enough acid. If the clots are mostly the size of a half grain of rice, you are probably dealing with a bit to much acid. As far as I have determined, glitter sized flecks at the rate of about 25-30 in a tablespoon full of milk is just about right. If the clots are bigger than rice grains and/or collect into blobs at the bottom, you blew it. Finish the process and plan on just straining it and having a batch of riccotta like stuff that melts.

Sounds nuts but youll see what I mean.

anywho, after the temp gets to 88F you add a cup of COLD water with a 3/8 tsp of liquid vegetable rennet mixed in it to the milk, slowly stir it and only enough to get it mixed in. Stop the milk from moving around and turn off the heat. Let it set for 20 min. If all is going right at this point you have a large mass of curd that is well set. I cut the curd into a grid pattern only one way (so you end up with long strands of curd not cubes) and turn the heat back on med high.

Slowly and gently stir it as it heats up. At about 100F you'll see the curd begin to melt, begin to shrink and you'll notice you can lift it out of the whey with the spoon and the large clumps are clearly "melting" and it gets progressively more like melted chewing gum.

At this point its a matter of just heating it to 120F, have a pan of water that is about 130F ready to dunk it all in to soften it up as you stretch it like a taffy pull.  Dump the pot into a strainer then dump the curd pile back into the pot, and fiddle with it until it all stays together in a mass that look and feels like very melted taffy. Slowly pull it and fold it, add salt to it as you go. When it stiffens up, drop it in the hot water for a few min till its soft again. If you made it to this point you got it right. stretch it and fold it a dozen times, dunking it in the hot water to get the milk out of it or youll have milky cheese and thats ok if you like "real" mozz. I dont I like it more like provolone which by cheese standards is probably more what I am making here.

After It's the consistency I like (think warm silly putty) I plop it in a container I have that is the shape I like (bricks) and chill it for a few days. It usually ends up firm enough to slice and hold its shape.

If you cant get it to stretch or melt, no worry really, simply by the fact you added the acid and the rennet at the right temps means it will melt just fine. You dont have to stretch it to have cheese that will melt. I make a version of this stuff that looks like very dry ricotta, and it melts when you heat it.

After about 100 gallons of milk you'll get the hang of it.
lol

It tastes ok melts and it freezes really well so that serves my purpose for cheese.

[willowgirl]

I can't believe he does this every day. :-o

[comfortablynumb]

Neither can I

[comfortablynumb]

Here is a link to the thread I just put up with detail instructions photos and a video.

www.hearthandgardens.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1532