Making butter from unhomogenized raw milk

I've been experimenting with milk; making butter, and boy have I learned alot, so I'm gonna share it with you!

Let's start at the beginning...MILK, well actually it's the cows, but to shorten this up we'll start with milk. The milk you buy in the store is homogenized and pasteurized. What do those two words mean?

Well...homogenization is essentially breaking up the fat globules in milk into smaller sized globules so the cream doesn't seperate from the milk. Here's a much more interesting in depth discussion of the why's and how's of homogenization.

Pasteurization is basically a heat sterilization process. It's used to kill the "bad bugs" in milk. It also kills the good bacteria, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other beneficial ingredients found in raw milk. There's a whole debate about raw vs. pasteurized milk going on, and it's so lengthy that it warrants a whole post of its own. At any rate, this link will give you some more info about the pasteurization of milk. As far as legality, in Massachusetts it is legal to sell raw milk right from the farm, but you won't find it in a store. The farms that sell it are also subject to monthly imnspections and tests, far more frequent than mainstream commercial dairies.

Now another factor is what the cows eat...do they eat grain, grass, hay? Does it really make a difference? Well I'm no cow expert, but here's what I knew starting out, the feed affects the butterfat content of the milk, and milk from grass fed cows has more good fatty acids (CLA) than milk from grain fed cows.

So I found myself 3 kinds of milk, all unhomogenized, some pasteurized, some unpasteurized.

So far I have no churn, just using the "mason jar + milk + lots of shaking" method, which takes alot of shaking. I figured I'd enlist some help, but first I wanted to make sure it worked.

I let the cream rise, sucked it off with a turkey baster, and let it sit out and come to room temperature. Then Aaron shook it alot...

Aaron's test batch, it actually worked!!

I grabbed 2 little family members with lots of energy and put them to work shaking.

This one liked to shake under my desk..

Having fun? 

...they were great on clean up, including dishes.

I even made them make their own supper! 

Mmmmm...calzones..... 

But wait this post is about butter... so here ya go..

 

Here are my findings:

 

Butter from grain fed, organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Cook Farm in Hadley, MA

• Color: very light color
• flavor: good, but margarine-like, almost oily

 

 

 

 

Butter from grass fed, organic, pasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Natural by Nature, purchased at The Living Earth in Worcester, MA

•  Color: much brighter yellow, clearly much yellower than grain fed
• Flavor: creamier, more buttery

 

 

Butter from hay fed*, organic, unpasteurized, unhomogenized cow's milk- From Robinson's Farm in Hardwick, MA

• Color: yellow, darker than grain fed, but not as bright as grass fed
• Flavor: Creamy, very buttery and smooth tasting, the best of the three

• *The cows are usually grass fed but in late November, early December they start getting hay.
• I'd be interested to see how the color/flavor changes when the cows are back on grass in the Spring
  

The butters shown in the same order as above from left to right: grain fed, grass fed, hay fed

This picture shows the color differences pretty well.

The Verdict: the last butter is the best.

 

 As for the leftovers from making butter; the buttermilk

 ...the first 2 times there wasn't much left so the dogs got it. The third time I saved it and will be making Sunday morning whole wheat buttermilk pancakes! YUM

 

In general, making butter with a canning jar is fun, but not something I'd consider doing to supply all of our butter needs. It's time consuming, messy(especally if the lid comes off), and a lot of work for very little butter. I did try using our food processor for the last batch, and I didn't like the results, the butter got too hot and was hard to seperate from the buttermilk. In the future I have hopes of buying a real butter churn which makes the idea of making larger batches much more conceivable.

 

 

http://www.lehmans.com/  sells a churn similar to a Dazey churn that I think would serve us well.

 

one day....one day..hee hee

 you will live in my house and I will make butter with you.

and I will have my own cow, and some chickens, and bees, and turkeys and sheep....and a big old broken down farmhouse with land and stone walls...

But until then I buy my raw milk, make my butter, and dream.

=0)

Processing Grease Fleece or why it smells like sheep in here....

Over the last year I've mentioned I'd love to learn to spin wool into yarn a few times, and being me I wanted to start from the beginning. Well, Aaron took me seriously and a few weeks ago, came home with a surprise. Three bags of unprocessed sheep's fleece, also called grease fleece. One of his customers mentioned they had some sheep and couldn't even give away the fleece.

I didn't quite know what to do with this stuff, so it went in the attic for a couple weeks. My philosophy is, with enough time, books, googling, and rarely, some hands on instruction, I can learn anything. So online I went and I found a pretty comprehensive how to.  I gathered my supplies (lingerie bags, long rubber gloves, and dawn dish soap), oddly enough I didn't actually own any of these things. Although, I'm now a fan of rubber gloves. Especially long pink ones. =0) Then I set out on my journey..

The first step is to pick out most of the debris, and since these fleece were free.... well let's just say the price was reflected in the quality. There was a lot of debris (vegetable matter, dung, urine, etc..) and I had to get rid of the really matted /dirty sections. I assume those were the belly/neck areas. Most people who have sheep and sell the fleece will "skirt" the fleece before they pack it away, which means take out the major debris and also the belly, leg, and neck sections (mostly done in shearing, but then again before the fleece are packed away).  Also some folks have their sheep wear special coats to keep vegetable matter off them. These particular fleece were shoved all willy nilly into black trash bags, which is a bad idea, but free is free and the lanolin didn't seem to have set in, so I figured might as well try it out..

This thing smelled bad, like a dirty sheep.

Skirting the fleece....

The nasty sections we had to cull out.

Then I started the washing process, basically a tub of hot hot water, some dawn dish soap, let soak, drain and spin (never agitate, or the wool will felt, they mean it too. I had some felt on me, because I was impatient and swished it around to clean it faster).

Take the wool out, refill with hot water, no soap, put the wool back in and soak again for a few minutes. Drain and spin.

Repeat until water is clear, which takes awhile.

I didn't use the lingerie bags the first time around, but I did the second time and that made the whole process much easier.

Then lay it out to dry, I put mine on an old screen thingy on top of a dog crate, Roxie loved having a sheep on top of her.

Here's a closer look.

Next up, combing wool.....

and then.....

spinning...

Neither of which I know how to do, but remember what I said about time, google, and books.

five finger shoes OR hideous frog feet shoes

Today Aaron and I drove out to Evans on the Common in Townsend, MA and bought our very own Vibram Five Finger Shoes . The lady at Evans was super nice and helpful with picking the right shoes and the right size. They are not sized like regular shoes so it's important to try them on before you buy them.

Aaron got the nice neutral black KSO,while I got the slate colored Sprint

If you like to be barefoot, but worry about sharp objects and hygiene check these out.

I know, they look kinda goofy, but who cares?

These shoes are supposedly just like being barefoot, but with some protection. Basically the idea is, our feet were made to be barefoot, and all of those pointy heeled shoes force our feet to be what they aren't. Which in turn can cause back, knee, and foot problems. I always think of it in terms of back braces. If you wear a back brace, the brace supports you and your muscles do less work and atrophy. The same thing happens in your feet. The shoes provide all the support and your muscles get weak.

We plan on slowly working our way into wearing these alot of the time, and Aaron wants to run in them. The Plan: take your time, do it slow, listen to your body.

I'll update when we've been wearing them for a bit, and let you know how it's going.

FYI this was all Aaron's idea..... I think he's coming to the crunchy side. =0)

Updated here and here

 at some point about 2 months after buying them, the seam on my big toe gave out. It was a very simple fix with a needle and thread. Aarons however are going strong with no signs of wear.