Milk - Standardization

[wharris]

Does anyone ever pay much attention to this?

I have not because I do not have a dairy farm and buy my milk from the store.  But I continue to hear that its important.
I've never really thought about it, but as I start to, i wonder what I can really check for and then what I can do about it.

I would imagine that fat content, solids-not-Fat are important things to check for, but I'm not entirely sure how.

Then the thought occurred to me.  Density. Would it make sense to start measuring the density of my milk prior to making my cheese?  I've never done it.  But it seems reasonable that if I am trying to make the same cheese over and over again that the density of the milk should be the same.

I would imaging that i could use my hydrometer to do this.  The more fat in the milk, the less dense. The less fat in the milk, the more dense it would be. 

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud.

[linuxboy]

I can detail milk testing procedures for a small-scale lab, if you want, Wayne. Gotta run right now, but let me know if you want to do that and I'll work on it.

[wharris]

Wow, that would be great.  Or a link would be fine.  I would love to get a handle on milk standardizaton. (I think,.....)

Coincidentally, I have just recently improved my home lab for wine analysis.  (unrelated to milk standardization)

Some pics of my home lab...
(extra credit for those that can identify the test, with a bonus for those that can tell me what I am testing for....)

[DeejayDebi]

Great lab Wayne! I don't think SG will work as there are other solids in milk besides fats that would affect the reading. I think I read somewhere ... that it can be done with a refractomter. I can eem to find the source though. I thought it was the online Science and Practice book.

[FarmerJd]

Wayne I had never thought of density as a general test for fat content (and it probably wouldn't work very precisely because solids also affect density but aren't necessarily fat, right?) but it really would be pretty easy I think to measure overall density without a lot of equipment. Even without specific info about fat or solid content you could at least track changes in the milk you were using. I may chew on this and try to start using a simple density test to track from cheese to cheese and even from cow to cow. I have just always thought any milk analysis was beyond the scope of a home setup but you may have a great idea. All you need is a graduated cylinder and a scale, right?
By the way, nice lab to go with the dungeon. 

[wharris]

It so funny,  just about everyone i know, calls my little basement workshop "the dungeon".  Its funny you remember that.

If I ever go small scale commercial, perhaps i will brand that..

Deb,  thanks for the input.  I will need to sit an think about this..

regardless, I think will be meauring temp and SG on all my milk going forward....

[DeejayDebi]

It could still yield valuable info.

[FarmerJd]

"Wayne's Old World Cheddar - Produced and Aged in an authentic dungeon cave. " I don't know; it sounds kind of creepy but very humid.

[MarkShelton]

vacuum aspiration? for free SO2?

[wharris]

Dingdingdingdingding!
Close enough, "Aeration Oxidation" test for free SO2

Nicely done Mark.

[MarkShelton]

Hooray for extra credit! Do I get a gold star?

[wharris]

And a cheese!

[MarkShelton]

even better!

[cheesehead]

Density for fat, don't bother...really.  You can buy a Paley bottle  from an old milk lab, get some sulfuric acid and a centrifuge and do your own fat test (Babcock test).  The centrifuge may be the hard one to get.   A babcock test takes ~10 mins and is quit easy.  That's all I did for years when testing for fat in cheesemilk.

http://www.coleparmer.ca/catalog/product_index.asp?cls=40988&Mode=7  shows what a Paley bottle looks like.  I gave a bunch away to the local college when I upgraded to different testing for fat.


What you want to measure is % fat & % protein IF you want to get scientific....I know no one tested for this 50 years ago but it is done now...


Measuring pH before, during & after the make is far far more valuable than fat testing though.....