Many of you have probably seen our milking stand by now.
If not, we recently built our own out of scrap material recently to help us with some chores. It was not only free, but a good family project. Here is a photo of the finished project when we were sizing it up.
Once we knew that it would work, we still had to prove it!
THE TEST DRIVE!
Soon, we had Daisy on the stand and enjoying a snack. The time to the "test drive" had arrived and we wanted to make sure that everything was working properly.
Although I plan on mounting a feeding tray to it, we had not gotten that far so Red-Pepper just held a dish out for Daisy. This allows her to enjoy herself with a tasty treat while we work, and it makes everything easier for her.
While @papa-pepper may not have much experience milking goats, the @little-peppers did, so they taught me the basic idea and soon I was milking. At this point we were still saving higher colostrum milk in case of an animal emergency, so though it may not have been for human consumption, we still wanted to everything as best as we could.
With some practice, I could actually almost get a continuous stream! That was kind of surprising for me. It helps for a few reasons. For one, it takes less time for the animal. Secondly, if the goats milk is not cooled soon enough, the flavor can be affected.
The repetition can be a bit monotonous, and my hands did cramp up a bit, but thankfully I have a backup plan for these instances.
Yup, just "make the kids do it!" LOL. Seriously though, taking turns can help and then we can all practice our skills and learn from one another. In the end, we concluded that the milking stand was a success. Some suggestions have been made, and a few improvements may be added, but overall we will say that it passed our test!
PRACTICE PROCESS
The next step for us was to run through the process that we will be using when we plan on drinking the milk. Our basic supplies are ice water, a sterile jar, coffee filters, and a strainer.
We place a coffee filter into the strainer and stick it into the mouth of the jar. Then, the jar is placed in a large bowl of ice water and the fresh milk is poured into the top. This helps remove any tiny hairs or other possible contaminants that may have fallen into the milk. Ideally the goal is to be as clean as possible, and to keep everything sterile and uncompromised, but practice makes perfect. That's why we ran the "animal milk" through the process.
Truly, we are all learning this together on our homestead, but each skill mastered is just one more thing that we won't have to learn later. With milking goats, it suddenly came upon us because we didn't even know that Daisy was pregnant when we purchased her. As with many things in life, we just adjust and go with the flow.
It can take a bit of time for all of the milk to make its way through the filter and strainer, but being patient is just another skill to work on mastering. Eventually, we had a nice big jar of goats milk!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-goat-milk
Until next time…
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We are living off grid in a shipping container while we build our cabin. Then the pigs, chickens and cows are next. Following you for information that will definitely be useful. Thanks 😀
Wow! So cool!
Homesteading is awesome!
We’re any goats harmed in the making of this post? Haha. I like to make cheese with my goat milk. Acid curdling makes a very light delicious cheese. Strain and press in cheese cloth. Good luck!
Hey dude, You are eating very healthy.. Goat milk is delicious @papa-pepper ☺
i have a animal such of this
good photography ever carry on
resteemit done
oh this is nice food
i like it
thanks for sharing a nice blog
keep it on
Acquired taste, that. I'm not knocking it.
nice food... reesteem done sir
Es un buen final
Nice... But is that the balls your squeezing
oh this is nice food
i like it
thanks for sharing a nice blog
keep it on
Nice to see your stand in action :) Will you be using the milk as is or making cheese / yogurt?
All of the above, hopefully.
That is such a joy to see y'all working and learning as a family!
Shared load is awesome...
Sharing the load is awesome! Thanks!
good post... i appreciate it...
thanks for sharing....
You guys are clearly doing great with Daisy.. Is the milk safe for consumption now?
Should be, we will be trying our first tonight!
Wow goog food from goat 👍
lol. milk it baby
It"s cool the kids were able to put you through the process of milking of the goat and also the processing of learning new thing.
Thanks! Every steemian knows now how to milk a goat))
This is a whole new learning for me. Thank you for the detailed steps. I think i need to learn how to 'milk'.
:) As i was young we made it on the same way. After that put some peace of young tree , or old yogurt in the milk. Cover it with cloth and produce yogurt :) ..... was cool time :)
Thank you for the Post :)
The young tree slip worked for culturing yogurt? Was it any particular kind of tree?
I dont remember exactly, but the important are the bacteria. They produce from milk - yogurt. In the different part of the word this bacteria are bit different and the natural yogurt is bit different.
just put in google : "how to make homemade bulgarian yogurt" - they are many tutorials :)
I know I read the account of a Greek woman talking about how her grandma made yogurt by leaving the warm milk uncovered on the counter for a while and then covering it with a thick blanket to stay warm and culture - the yogurt cultures must literally be in the air in that area of the world. I've also heard the bacillus bacteria is in soil and can be found in high concentrations in the little balls of soil around ant hills. That's on my mental list to try since I now know from experience all you get from leaving warm milk out around here is sour milk.
Currently, I just use some of my previous batch to culture my current batch. But there's this niggling part of my brain wondering what would happen if my starter went bad and I couldn't buy more yogurt from the store...
I highly recommend looking for the 6" ish round disc milk filters to upgrade the coffee filters. They are designed to let the fat molecules through and easily fold into a funnel shape to fit a canning funnel-like you pictured. Milk pours right through it...whoosh!
If you're digging this goat milk stuff I have a gem of an old tool to show you on Thursday :)
Thanks for the tips. Looking forward to it!
I've only just discovered your profile and I'm pretty amazed at how much detail you put in your post. I'm trying to work towards achieving that kind of quality as well.
Have also kept goats for a long time myself, but never milked them :-)
I've been blogging here for over a year and a half now, so I've learned a few things. Thanks.
thanks for sharing a good blog.
Nice
Excellent post, your whole family will enjoy it! I am a food technologist, and enjoy your story a lot! Congratulations
YOGURT!!!!! HOORAY!!!!
Okay, I'm a little ahead of what's going on. For now...plain ol' goat's milk sounds great.
I really enjoy goat's milk. And goat cheese. And goat yogurt...
Congratulations and good job on getting the milking rhythm. And next thing you know, the kids will be knowledgeable and responsible enough that they'll be doing this task.
One of the most important things about being Dad, after all, is working yourself out of a job.
Nicely done. That took a lot of patient work obviously. Your lil girl is absolutely adorable. You guys are so real! nothing contrived about the peppers!
Thanks, glad that you like us keeping it real!
I love milking goats! It was fun for me!I loved the milk too! I want them again when my husband and I have our own house.
The children master the milking faster because they have smaller hands. You have bigger hands, therefore it takes a little longer to get good at milking. Can't wait until you show us the cheese an yoghurt you make with goat's milk!
Very healthy
Hi @papa-pepper, I’m fairly new to your blog roll and am looking forward to kind of reading back through your posts. My initial question and forgive me if you covered this in previous posts, but my impressions of home stealing is that it is quite time intensive... would that be a fair assumption? Are you also working in some other vocation as well and how do you balance it all if so? I’ll try not to pester you too much, but it was just some of my initial thought as I was reading here. Look forward to getting to know you.
Peace to you @genxrev
That is awesome @papa-pepper! good family time! It's great that you guys really had a good time :)
You could make goatcheese with chili and garlic, yummy!
The most interesting part of the post was the statement "At this point we were still saving higher colostrum milk". Is there a different practice for colostrum? It is wise to keep some on hand in the freezer for emergencies in the future. I know you plan to help neighbors animals needing it too.
Nice we will be doing this soon.
Very useful information.