Clabbered Milk: Part 5 (another try!)

So, another failure. This time it never separated (5 days) and when I looked inside, there was yellow mold growing on top.

I think my clabbered milk failures might have something to do with the temperature in our kitchen. It fluctuates quite a bit and it usually isn't warm.

I ordered the book, "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. I've read about it a few places on the internet and one of my friends recently bought it. The book is supposed to have more instructions on how to make clabbered milk, or raw cream cheese as it's called in the book.

Another Try....

This time I turned the oven light on and left the door closed for an hour. Then I checked the temperature inside the oven. It was 81˚ F. One person I heard from via email or post said that her kitchen is always around 81˚ F or 82˚ F and hers separates quite quickly.

So, I have another 1/2 gallon of raw goat milk (milked on 8/24) sitting in the oven with the light on. I'll see how it turns out this time.

8/29/10 at 10 PM
Here we go again! This time in the oven with the light on so the temperature is a bit warmer and there are no drafts. There probably won't be any temperature variations from day time to night time, either.

Good thing I have so much milk in the fridge right now, it gives me lots of milk to experiment with.

8/30/10 at 8:30 AM, still looks the same, no change.

 And another photo on 8/31/10 at 2:00 PM. Hmmmmm..... still looks the same. Linda said that she likes hers when a thin liquid is between the clabbered milk and the jar.

 I didn't take another photo yet, because it looks just the same as it did earlier this afternoon. It's about 6:00 pm on 8/31/10, same day as the photo above. But I took the rag off the top (yes, that's one of my t-shirt rags!) and it smells..... good!

It smells a bit like yogurt, but not quite. It isn't really thick yet, like I've read so many places. It had a bit of a skin on top so I scooped it off and threw it away so the milk isn't sealed with the skin.

At this point I think that the oven with the light on is probably the best place in my kitchen to make clabbered milk. The temperature remains fairly constant and there is no yeast floating around in the air.

9/1/10 at 7:00 AM

Whoo Hoo!! It looks like it worked!

I opened the oven door and the milk had separated! No bulging on the top, no weird smell! I can hardly believe it!

For my house, where the temperature fluctuates between 68˚- 80˚, clabbering the milk in the oven with the light on is probably the best place.

I put it in the oven on Sunday night and Wednesday morning I have some beautiful clabbered milk!

This is what it looks like after I took the cloth off the top. It looks and smells delicious. This time it looks creamy, not hard, like the last few times.

Like all cheeses (I think) it has to be strained through a cheesecloth. My favorite is the butter muslin from New England Cheesemaking Supply. I love the way it holds up wash after wash and doesn't fall apart. I have to run a lint roller over it before I put the curds in it to get any little stray hairs or fluff of.

Hanging from my cider press by my desk. I can smell it from here. It smells a little sweet and a little sour at the same time. More a yogurt-type sour instead of a lemon-type sour.

On India Curry, one of the sites I found, it said the optimum temperature for making clabbered milk is 90˚F. I also found some interesting information on Wikipedia. People in the Southern United States would eat it for breakfast with brown sugar, cinnamon, or molasses added. Smelling it while I am typing, I think that sounds delicious!

And as I was searching I came across a reference to 'Quark'. Another type of cream cheese that is made by letting milk sit overnight. Put that on my to do list!

One thing that has really surprised me while I have been learning to make cheese is how often we leave the curds at room temperature, or drain at room temperature. If someone had told me last year that I would have been leaving raw milk out for 4 days and then eating the result, I would have told them they were crazy! I can hear my mom and grandma saying, "Put the milk away before it spoils!"

After a little more searching, I found out that letting the milk get to this point is called 'clotted cream'. Here's the Wise Geek link where I found it.

After draining for 3 hours it is creamy and smooth. It looks a bit lumpy in the photo, but a taste in my mouth proves it is rich and buttery. It looks like it made about 1/2 pound of clabbered milk.

Here's what the whey looks like, just in case you are curious. It is a bit thicker than other whey I've gotten from cheese. I'm going to make some bread with it instead of putting it on the flowerbed this time. I'm curious to see how this whey does in bread in comparison to the whey from other cheeses.

One more great website I found is called, "Everything Goat Milk". This link takes you directly to their cheesemaking page.

Now I am scouring the internet to find different recipes using clabbered milk and clotted cream! I imagine I'll have to find some cookbooks from the early 1800's to browse through.

So much milk, so little time in a day!