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GENERAL BOARDS => Geographic Type Posts => United Kingdom => Topic started by: SpargePervert on October 12, 2012, 10:12:20 AM

Title: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on October 12, 2012, 10:12:20 AM
Sorry if this is a bit of a newbie question,  but was just wondering what milk people use? 
Living in London I'm fairly limited to supermarket milk.  Is it better to go for something like Jersey unhomogenised milk? This seems "more natural" than other milk.
Is it a bad idea just to use standard full fat milk?  Should I add cream to boost fat levels?   
Also, can anyone recommend a good place to buy goats milk in the UK?

Any help would get greatly appreciated! 

Thanks
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: hoeklijn on October 12, 2012, 10:49:04 AM
Unhomogenized milk is better, because the fat is fragmented during the process. The best IMHO is raw milk, but that will be difficult in the middle of London...
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on October 12, 2012, 11:28:00 AM
Thanks for the fast reply.   :)

I think it's probably best to get the unhomogensied Jersey cow milk then,  it seems like the nearest to raw I will find locally!
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: hoeklijn on October 12, 2012, 01:07:25 PM
Absolutely the best for you. I'm in the lucky position to have both raw coat milk as raw cow milk available in my neighborhood. I usually pick up the cow milk during milking time so it's still at about 35C when I come home...
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Tiarella on October 12, 2012, 04:04:26 PM
Sparge,  Do you have ultra pasteurized milk over there like we do in the US?  If so, avoid it like the plague.  It won't make decent curds. 
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: bbrown131211 on October 12, 2012, 06:38:14 PM
Here in Texas, supermarket milk seems to only be ultrapasteurized -- no good for cheeses made with curds. However, I have successfully used Jersey cream (from Costco) and ultrapasteurized half and half for sour cream, cream fraise and cream cheese. Otherwise, I drive an hour into the country to a dairy for Jersey raw milk or raw goat's milk, which is expensive but works well at least for this newbie.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on October 12, 2012, 09:20:44 PM
Cheers for the replies!

Yeah,  most of the supermarket milk here is all highly processed milk pasteurised  & seems pretty watery. 
I found this on a UK based cheese making supplies website so think I'll try finding  the Gold Top stuff, or try doing a mix of milk & cream, does this sound reasonable?

I've found a place that sells raw unprocessed milk online but its fairly pricey, so it would be a last resort.


Quote
Q. What is non-homogenised milk?   From hundreds of people, worldwide!!

A. Homogenisation is a mechanical process that reduces the size of the fat globules in milk, so the cream does not rise to the top, as sold by supermarkets. Homogenised milk will not clot successfully with rennet. If using supermarket milk for cheese making, buy skimmed milk and double cream. Combine them in a ratio of 12 parts skimmed milk to 1 part double cream.Non-homogenised milk has not been through this process and would be equivalent to 'Gold Top' the milkman leaves and milk straight from the cow.  *Sainsbury's do a Gold Top Guernsey milk*
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Sailor Con Queso on October 12, 2012, 09:40:48 PM
Adding cream will not repair damage done by ultra-pasteurization.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Spellogue on October 12, 2012, 11:30:28 PM
We milk a small herd of our own Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats.  It is otherwise tough to get fresh, especially raw, goat milk in Ohio, given our state laws.  Milk commerce laws are set by individual states in the US.  I'm in the process if drying our goats off now, so my personal supply of raw goat milk is fast dwindling.  I plan to buy some Hartzler's brand cow milk this winter.  it is low temp pasturized (145F) and non-homogenized, comes as whole, 2%, or skim.  They don't sell the cream, they make it into butter.  It is sold all over Ohio and into Indiana and West Virginia.  Has anyone used this brand.  It sells for $9.18 USD per gallon, seems like a lot to pay, but perhaps not as it is the only brand of this quality I can find. 

Here is a link to their website:  http://www.hartzlerfamilydairy.com/oh-hormone-free-milk/health-benefits-2 (http://www.hartzlerfamilydairy.com/oh-hormone-free-milk/health-benefits-2)
You might do a web search for non-homogenized or cream-line milk in your area and find a similar dairy.

We are surrounded by commercial cow dairies where I live and  I would love to get some raw cows milk but I'd have to buy it on the black market here in Ohio.  I haven't been able to find anyone offering herd share nearby.  All the organic milk i've found marketed here is ultra pasturized, blech, so be wary in looking over lables.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on October 13, 2012, 10:39:08 AM
Thanks for all the help,  i think I need to do a bit more research before I commit to batch of cheese that might not work!

I've been doing some reading, is ultra-pasteurised the same as UHT (Ultra High Temperature),  if so most milk in supermarkets is not this extremely pasteurised,  I think its just "normal" pasteurised,  UHT being specifically marked as such.

The Jersey Gold Top I can get my hands on is this:
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268601414
 (http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=268601414)

Not a lot of info about it,  but probably the best I can get without ordering online.

Spellogue,  is it illegal to buy raw milk dierect from the farm over in Ohio then?  I think in the UK there are no laws against it,  but I dont think theres much of a market for it.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Spellogue on October 13, 2012, 03:30:04 PM
That Jersey Top looks like some nice milk.  You should be able to make some fine cheeses with it.  Looks to be about the same pricemark as the Hartzler's I can get here.

Yes, UHT and ultra-pasturized are the same thing.  They heat the milk to 135C / 275F for 2 seconds.  That kills EVERYTHING, even those pesky mold spores (pesky for industry anyway).  We call it dead milk.  I don't know how they heat and chill it so fast, perhaps they run it through some coiling contraption of sorts.  If they didn't do it quickly I suppose the milk would break (solids and liquids visibly separate.)  That happened to us when we pressure canned some goat milk we used to feed bummer lambs one year.  I'm surprized to see how popular the UHT milk is in parts of Europe.  Americans have been skeptical of buying milk in unrefrigerated boxes, but the stuff is creeping into the dairy case.  It's about the only way heavy cream comes in the grocery store anymore here.  The milk that is marketed as organic in the cold case is almost all ultrapasturized too.  The organic doesn't sell as fast (twice the price of 'dirty' milk) and the UP allows for a much later sell by date.   I'm learning even more about how horrible homogenization is to the nutritional degradation of milk too.  And it is done for strictly cosmetic reasons at that.  I have to make a 15 mile trip to a health food store for creamline (non-homogenized).

There is something to be said for economy too though.  I've had good results stretching raw goat milk with a smaller amount of pasturized/homogenized grocery cows milk.  Yes, it was dirty milk replete with antibiotics and bovine growth hormone, I'll admit.  The cheese I'll make from the all natural Hartzler's creamline will be $10/lb in milk cost alone. Not so bad considering the high quality handcrafted results.  I'm looking forward to blending the good stuff with some goat milk.

As to buying raw from the farm, Ohio regs do not allow it, but other states like Oregon and Pennsylvania do under certain circumstances.  Ohio recently passed a bill to allow herd share, but it is in its infancy and details in the execution of those arrangements are just now being tried and tested. 

I found this website highlighting US raw milk retailing laws state by state:
http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/raw-milk-regulations (http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/raw-milk-regulations)
Perhaps some will find it useful or interesting.  Funny, Rhode Island only allows the sale of raw goat milk with a physician's prescription.  I've always believed in the medicinal qualities of raw goat milk, but requiring a prescription for a high-nutrition food?  I got bit of a laugh anyway.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Tiarella on October 13, 2012, 04:29:18 PM
Sparge, different states have different laws over here.  In my state (Massachusetts) it's illegal to sell raw milk unless you are a grade A licensed dairy which is a HUGE expense.  In New Hampshire you can sell as long as you sell less than a certain limit each day.  I think that is 20 gallons perhaps.  Maine has another law that favors the small dairy but I don't remember it.  Some states had dairies that would sell raw milk "for pet use only" and people would use it for human consumption since it was just a way around the rulings.

Spellogue, what do you do with all your extra milk?  I haven't figured that o e out other than to make cheese but since we probably can't keep up with the cheese either we end up gifting it to others or bartering.  MA has one of the most strinent sets of laws.  It's almost worth moving but not quite.  I like my set up too much to move at this time.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: george on October 14, 2012, 11:02:06 AM
Funny, Rhode Island only allows the sale of raw goat milk with a physician's prescription.  I've always believed in the medicinal qualities of raw goat milk, but requiring a prescription for a high-nutrition food?  I got bit of a laugh anyway.
  No one has ever described Rhode Island as making sense.   ;D
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Spellogue on October 14, 2012, 04:41:12 PM
We haven't  ended up with much surplus milk in the last few years.  We've only been keeping goats for 4 years so far.  Five goats is the most we've had in milk at one time.  With Nigerians that rarely gave me more than 2 gallons a day.  We put it in coffee, on cereal, drink a bit of it straight up.  I make kefir, on and off throughout the season and that uses a bunch.  About a month after freshening is when we have the most and cheese production kicks into full gear.  I cook it into a lot of different sauces.  We've frozen some for soap, but haven't gotten round to make any yet.  Any that sits in the fridge for more than 4 days gets fed to dogs,pigs, or chickens.  I try to use as much of the whey as I can in cooking and freeze it for winter bread baking,  but the livestock get the rest of that too.

This time of year our shrinking supply of goat milk is a bigger concern.  The does' production starts to wane even before i go down to once a day milking.  We're already sporadically milking every 36 hours. My daughter makes smoothies, fudge, and ice cream.  After I made that last Caerphilly I her her saying "Hey! where's all the goat milk?  I'm supposed to make fudge for Jen's bonfire.".  The kids aren't the biggest fans of the cheeses.  The adults appreciate them much more.

I've had friends ask me about getting a supply of raw goats milk from us, but I haven't felt I could adequately keep up with the demand, so far.  I don't really want to take a chance selling it in this state either.  I know other people do it on the down low, but it just takes one happy customer letting a positive word in the wrong direction to bring a heap of hassle.  Our vet told us about state inspectors soliciting the purchase of raw milk from small farms and promptly slapping them with large fines. (Entrapment? Perhaps.)  He suggested if we did move any milk off the farm we mark it "Not for Human Consumption.). It's sale as animal feed is even dubious here.

We might keep nine goats in milk through show season next year.  I'm going to be making a lot more cheese or getting another pig.  I hope the former.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on October 16, 2012, 08:26:26 AM
I ended up taking the plunge at the weekend   O0

I was loosely following the roquefort/stilton recipes from Mary Carilns Artisan Cheesemaking,  I figured I'd jump right into the deep end!  The roqefort recipe called for half/half mix of cows milk and full cream which seemed like a lot of cream to me,  whereas the stilton recipe was 100% cows milk (i think, cant remember!)  I was going to go with 100% Jersey Gold Top milk but there wasn't enough in the store so I went with the following:
3 litres Jersey Gold Top (unhomogenised)
1.2 litres Standard supermarket full cows millk (homogenised)
300ml full cream.

I then followed the roquefort recipe from the book & everything seems to go to plan.
Here are a couple of pics of my curds,  I think I got a decent break, although Im not sure if I started cutting a little bit early. 

(http://a.yfrog.com/img816/9035/pskh.jpg)

(http://a.yfrog.com/img640/6835/u6ing.jpg)

The curds were well formed but still pretty moist when I ladled them out.  The recipe said to ladle the curds into a cheese cloth and hang "for 30 minutes, or until they stop dripping"...  I deviated from the recipe here because they were still dripping a fair amount after an hour,  so I ended up leaving them hanging overnight.  I've seen post of people on here doing that for blue cheeses,  so I wasnt too worried.  I think as long as I end up with something cheese-like and blue I'll be impressed!

The cheese is now in my cheese cave at 15C and 95% RH,  which is a little on the high side for both,  so I'm still drying to dial that in.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: dansta on March 21, 2013, 08:36:05 PM
How did the cheese turn out in the end SwiftPint? I'm in London and started making my own cheese about a year ago with mixed success.  I'd be interested to see how your getting on with it.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Salilah on March 25, 2013, 06:46:25 PM
More thoughts on milk:

London - Borough Market - raw milk, but it's £3 per litre, which makes it very expensive!

Tesco have their own equivalent of the Jersey Gold top

Waitrose I think ditto - they also do Duchy Organics (think this is homogenised) - also expensive

I tried Daylesford (?) 500ml organic whole milk - plastic bags not cartons - from Waitrose / Ocado - however this try didn't work too well, 2.5L only gave one camembert not two, but it could well have been me!!

Any others?  You can buy raw milk from the farmer's gate (!) but in East Anglia there's not a lot of dairy!
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Dibbs on March 26, 2013, 01:46:58 PM
I've bought raw milk from the guys who make the excellent Lincolnshire Poacher cheese at a farmers market in Leeds. 

http://www.lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/products/ (http://www.lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/products/)

I see from their web site that they also do a couple of farmers markets in London.  You can pre-order online if you want a lot.  I had a chat to the guy on the stall and he said they have quite a few amateur cheesemakers buy milk from them. 

http://www.lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/markets-and-events/ (http://www.lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/markets-and-events/)

I think they were charging £1.20 per litre.  Maybe a bit more but certainly nowhere near the Borough Market £3 rip off.

Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Salilah on March 26, 2013, 02:30:18 PM
Thanks for the suggestion!
I'll see which I can get to...
cheers
S
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Dibbs on March 26, 2013, 02:40:55 PM
Thanks for the suggestion!
I'll see which I can get to...
cheers
S

Get some of their cheese while you're there too.  It's excellent, although the three year old Knuckleduster is not for the faint hearted.  It has the strap line on the label "Go on, if you think you're hard enough" so you can probably imagine.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: Dibbs on April 17, 2013, 02:50:39 PM
...
I think they were charging £1.20 per litre.  Maybe a bit more but certainly nowhere near the Borough Market £3 rip off.

Actually it is £1.40 per litre.  I got some more last weekend.
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: klschnepp on April 17, 2013, 06:38:01 PM
I just posted on this recently, glad to see more cheese people in London!  We are actually pretty darn lucky.  You can get pasteurised, non-homogenised milk at most major grocery stores, just check out the labels carefully.   I used to use Calon Wen a lot (buy from Ocado).  Waitrose has their own brand of this kind of milk (just read labels carefully regarding homog.--some that you might think are not actually are!!).  There is also one at Sainsbury's and even Tesco.   The going rate is about £1/litre.  We don't have the same problems as the USA with ultra high temp pasteurisation being a norm.   

Jersey cows have very high fat content, it is actually too high for the cheese I mainly make!!!   So, just something to keep in mind as you are looking at recipes.

Raw milk is becoming more available and most farmers markets have it.  Hook & Sons is the £3 one.  The rest are usually around £1.50.   

Hope this helps!
Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: SpargePervert on August 19, 2013, 01:47:46 PM
How did the cheese turn out in the end SwiftPint? I'm in London and started making my own cheese about a year ago with mixed success.  I'd be interested to see how your getting on with it.

Sorry for the long time to reply! 
The cheese didn't turn out well at all,  but I think that was due to poor conditions in the cheese cave - too warm and too wet.
Now that I have a dedicated fridge to use as a cave I'm back on the forum and going to give it a new try.

More thoughts on milk:

London - Borough Market - raw milk, but it's £3 per litre, which makes it very expensive!

Tesco have their own equivalent of the Jersey Gold top

Waitrose I think ditto - they also do Duchy Organics (think this is homogenised) - also expensive

I tried Daylesford (?) 500ml organic whole milk - plastic bags not cartons - from Waitrose / Ocado - however this try didn't work too well, 2.5L only gave one camembert not two, but it could well have been me!!

Any others?  You can buy raw milk from the farmer's gate (!) but in East Anglia there's not a lot of dairy!


I've just started a batch using 5 litres of the Jersey Gold top.  Its still £1 a litre in Tesco, so not too bad, same price as Tesco's equivalent (probably the same stuff?)
There a stall at the Sunday market in Blackheath that sells raw milk, I think it's straight from their farm in Kent.  I cant remember how expensive it was but certainly cheaper than Borough Market, but not as good as £1.20 a litre!

I've made a couple of batches of hallumi, and I've just used normal tesco whole milk for that & it's come out fine.  For anything aged I'd want to use better quality milk, I reckon.

Good to see some more cheesemakes from the UK & London.   ;)

Title: Re: Where do you get your milk from?
Post by: dc-k on March 08, 2018, 06:30:17 PM
More thoughts on milk:

Waitrose I think ditto - they also do Duchy Organics (think this is homogenised) - also expensive


Waitrose Duchy is not homogenised, in the large containers you get 4 pints or 2.27 litres for under £2 which I reckon is fine. I've used this and find it yields well. I am also fortunate enough to live within reasonable distance of a farm that sells raw milk at £2 for 2 litre, I find the flavour of the raw preferable.