Author Topic: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question  (Read 3527 times)

chilipepper

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Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« on: February 22, 2009, 07:48:44 PM »
I'm going to be making a stilton here shortly and will be using raw milk rather than whole milk and cream as my last batch.  According to the milk WIKI: "Jersey cows produce milk of about 5.2% fat".  I would assume that I should just use the milk directly and not any additional cream or skimming off of the cream?

This may go back to some of the milk discussion.  According to my recipe it calls for 1 cup of half and half cream added per gallon of whole milk.  Again we are back to the verbiage of the recipe and what assumptions we are making in regards to any particular authors definition of whole milk?   

Any advice before I venture forward would be appreciated. 

Ryan

Likesspace

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Re: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2009, 01:53:16 AM »
Hey Ryan..
I wish I could offer you some definitive advice on this subject but I've never been fortunate enough to use raw milk.
The only thing I can tell you is that I've always used whole (3.5%) milk and have added what I believe to be 18% whipping cream to the mix.
This seems to me that the final cream content, of my mixture, would be well above the 5.2% of your raw milk but that's only a guess.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help on this, but good luck!

Dave

chilipepper

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Re: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2009, 04:24:44 PM »
Dave, thanks for the reply.  Let me run the math by some of you and see if my thinking on this is correct.  So based on the milk discussion here.   If we consider a recipe which calls for 1 cup of half and half (for sake of discussion we'll assume 18% butterfat) and 1 gallon of whole milk (3.25% butterfat).

From here we could say:

1 Gallons Whole Milk = 128 oz
1 Cup Half & Half = 8 oz
At 3.25% butterfat then 1 gallon whole milk has 4.16 oz of butterfat. (128 x .0325)
Likewise at 18%, 1 cup of half & half has 1.44 oz of butterfat. (8 x .18)

Now if we combine these we'd have 136 oz of mixed milk comprised of 5.6 oz of butterfat or 4.12% butterfat.

SO now the glaring question is what is the optimum fat content for Stilton making.  If we know that we can work the fat numbers to accommodate an ideal whether it is store bought or an estimation of raw milk fat.

Ryan

Offline Cartierusm

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Re: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2009, 09:03:00 AM »
Ryan I think you're over thinking it, because unless you are actually testing the milk your are using at the time of the batch milk is going to vary slightly all the time. I would ask the person you get the raw milk from as to fat content.

chilipepper

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Re: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2009, 03:23:55 AM »
I was really just trying to rationalize the concept of adding the pint of half and half to a gallon of whole milk.  I wanted to make that stilton with raw milk and didn't have or want to add extra cream to already pretty creamy milk. 

It is pretty amazing how much the cream content changes on the raw milk I get.  Sometimes there is about 1.5 inches of cream that will seperate to the top.  At other times I've had almost 3 inches of cream at the top of a gallon jar full.   The people I get my milk from most likely do not have the ability to test the cream content, not to mention, it seems to change from day to day.

Ryan

Cheese Head

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Re: Raw Milk Stilton - Cream Question
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2009, 11:32:14 AM »
Ryan thanks for doing the math, looks correct, your problem as you said, is how to measure your raw milk's changing fat content.

For my Blue Cheese #3 (Stilton #1) I used:
  • 3.75 US gallons store bought pasteurized homogenized whole cow's milk, assume 3.25% butterfat.
  • 3/4 quart store bought ultra-pasteurized cow's whipping cream, assume 36% butterfat.

Ignoring losses from my stockpot's leaking rivets :( as not relevant to this calculation:
  • My milk had 128 ounces/US gallon x 3.75 US gallons x 3.25% butterfat = 15.6 ounces butterfat.
  • My whipping cream had 32 ounces/US quart x 3/4 quart x 36% butterfat = 8.64 ounces butterfat.
  • Combine (15.6+8.64 ounces butterfat) / (3.75x128 + 0.75x32) = 4.81% butterfat.

This is 17% higher than you calculated and mine ripened up like cream cheese, is as solid as a (somewhat) hollow rock, and as Carter said:
Quote
It's weird that the rind hasn't wrinkled.

But that may be more a function of my method than ingredients.