Cream Separator for Goat Milk

[Rechellef]

I am a beginner cheesemaker (about 3 months young), but it has been a fantastic adventure with its successes and failures.  Anyway, I do want to be able to separate the cream from my doe's milk for butter.  Is there a good, but not too expensive, recommendation for a cream separator for goat's milk?

[Oberhasli]

I used to do it a really cheap way.  I store my milk in 1/2 gallon jars and wait about two days and then skim the cream off the top and put it in a tupperware container and freeze it until I had collected enough to make butter.  I never had enough cream to spare to warrant buying those expensive separators.  I would defrost the cream when I had two cups or so and then put the cream in a smaller quart jar and sit on the front porch in my rocking chair and gently shake it until I had a nice lump of butter  .  But, it is very hard to make cheese from goat milk that has had the cream removed, so I don't make butter any more and just make cheese.  Of course, if you have five or six gallons of milk everyday you could always buy a separator.  Nasco is a livestock company that sells a bunch of different ones or the goat companies like Hoegger's or Caprine Supply also carry them.

Good luck.

Bonnie