Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Buttermaking


I think you can see the glob of butter there in this picture. I know its hard to see. Kind of fun though.
One of the things I really wanted to try when we got goats was making our own butter. So, we saved cream off a few days milkings, until we had a pint jar full, then one evening we just started shaking it. And we shook, shook, and shook some more, until Voila! We had butter floating in milk. It was really cool. This actually was our first batch, and it took a while to do, the second batch we let warm up more before we started shaking, and we used a larger jar, so it had more room to shake, so it went a lot faster. Now we've made butter twice!

I tried to make yogurt once, but it didn't go well. I think maybe I didn't let it cure long enough? It was like white snot, not to be gross, but it was. Anyone who's made it before - how do you tell yogurt is done and ready to go in the fridge????

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i used to make my own youghurt, back in the day when you weren't even born yet! It's tricky--it varies a lot from day to day. The important things are 1) the culture 2) 105-110 degrees and 3) 8-12 hours. It might take a little while to get a good culture going, esp one that works on goat milk. I'd start by buying a goat youghurt at the healthfood store that was advertised as having living cultures. It won't be as firm as in the store (they put pectin and agae and stuff in theirs, most brands), it will be more like runny pudding. You can thicken it up by putting it in a colander with a couple layers of cheese cloth (with a bowl underneath to catch the liquid), and put it in the frig for 8-24 hrs til it gets the thickness you like. You can get it reduced down almost to farmers cheese consistency this way.

Fresh goatcheese butter is $12 for 8 0z at the farmers market. . .

Love you, Sandra

Joanna said...

Wow - there you go again amazing me with your domestic talents. Good job!

I remember making (cow's milk) butter at primary activities when we were kids. We'd get a baby food jar, some cream, and they'd put a marble in the jar to roll around as we shook. Gabe might enjoy that - I should give it a try one of these days.