goats milk questions

[Kristina]

OK so we have a dairy goat. (please excuse me for not knowing all the proper terms here) Anyway how do we prepare the milk? I'm pretty clueless on this one but would love to know exactly what to do. Any help is REALLY appreciated!

 

[RioLindoAz]

all I know is that you have to boil it befor it reaches anyones mouth.
I promise I will tell you more (I need to ask my Grandma about it)

 

[Blondie]

Check out http://coffeeshop.goatweb.com/index.php

They will have a lot of information.

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

The website Blondie gave is a good forum.


Here are basic instructions on how to Pasteurize your milk. One thing they don't tell you is to strain the milk through a filter. A coffee filter will work.

Some people do this and some drink the milk raw, unpasteurized.
We plan to use ours raw when our Nubian nanny's have their kids in the Spring.

Pasteurizing Milk
If you don't have a store-bought pasteurizer, you can easily perform this task on your stovetop.
You can use the double-boiler method. If you don't have a standard double-boiler, just use two pots, one large and one smaller, so that the small one can fit into the large one. The reason you want to do this is so that the milk doesn't scald on the bottom.

Directions;

Put a few inches of water in the bottom half of the double-boiler. In the top pan, place your milk. Using a thermometer, heat the milk up to 161 degrees F slowly. Stir it to make sure the milk is an even temperature throughout.

After it is brought up to 161 degrees F, remove the top pan and set it in a sink full of very cold water to cool it quickly.

Jean

 

[snugglepup]

What is the benefit to pasturizing it? Does it matter if you are going to drink it right away? We don't pasturize human milk, just take it right from the source.

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

Here is a link to an article about the benefits of not pasteurizing milk.
http://www.realmilk.com/rawvpasteur.html

Pasteurizing is supposed to kill virus' and harmful bacteria. USDA has now found that the methods used for store bought milk does not kill all the "bad" bacteria and are studying on a new process.
I'll have to search for that article. It's been awhile since I've seen it.

As I said, we plan to use our goat milk raw. (right from the source, too)

Jean

 

[Bubba]

Remember whatever you choose you have to make CHEESE!!! CHHHHEEEESSSSSEEEEE!!!! is GOOD!!!

Ok I LOVE CHEESE!!!

Plus you will have fun making it, it is addictive thou, almost as bad as chickens. You start out with something simple and before you know it your making 10 different kinds of cheese. The nice thing about cheese is most of them do not take alot of time. The time is spaced out of course but it's not like cooking. You can also save up milk and do all your cheese making in a day. Make sure to try soft and hard cheeses each has their own characteristics (SP, Oh GOD PLEASE where is the spell check), flavors, consitences/textures (I know I got that one wrong) and uses in eating raw (with crackers, by itself) or cooking with.

One note on safety thou. Make sure you realize that once your friends try some they will become ravaging animals that expect to be feed fresh cheese every week. You think chickens are bad with squaking, at least they can't call you on the phone.... Now we know no one wants that right

Bubba

 

[Kristina]

Thanks for the info everyone. Well I do want to TRY to make cheese eventually but it seems a bit complicated. Now the homemade yogurt I will be trying! LOL! The other thing I would want to try to make is goats milk soap. I'm thinking you could use it raw for soap? Any ideas on that one? Maybe southernchick would know. I used to check out goatweb a while ago before we got our goats but at the time I wasn't so much interested in that part of it. BUT...now we want to start doing more of the homemade/homegrown thing. Well pasteurizing sounds easy enough...hmmmm maybe too easy LOL. We still have a while yet though.

 

[sunnychooks]

I have an Alpine that I milk twice a day. I have never pasturized or boiled milk and as long as your milk handling procedures are sanitary you should not have problems. Personally, I think that raw milk is better and healthier, but this is a topic that will start a heated discussion among the most experienced of goat people.

It takes me about 30 minutes to milk, but only about 8 minutes of that is actually milking out my goat. The rest is pre and post sanitation procedures. In other words, milking a goat is a sanitation procedure with a goat thrown in.

I like the Goatweb site, but my favorite is www.dairygoatsplus.com. There is a thread on there with step by step milking instructions. Everyone does things a bit differently (products for teat dips, icing vs. refridgeration during cool-down...), but as long as you follow safe handling guidelines you should be fine.

 

[DoctorGoose]

Um...dumb question from a non-goat owner...but...what do you do with all those kids? And do people have stud fees?