Cow's Milk, Raw - How Convert To Low Fat

[countrygirl]

Hi everyone and Happy New Year from Australia.
I have now made about 17 cheeses, and would like to try some Italian cheeses. Now I get my milk from the local dairy farmer, and so it's whole milk. Does anyone know how to turn whole milk into low fat?

[Cheese Head]

Not me, but assuming you have raw non-pasteurized non-homogenized whole milk some posts here and here discuss how.

[zenith1]

Hi Countrygirl -welcome to the forum. What type of Italian cheese are you looking to make? Parm for instance is made from milk that has has the cream skimmed manually from the top of the milk after it sits in the vat. It's not the same as store bought skimmed milk. For a true low fat milk maybe a cream separator although I don't know what percentage of milk fat that process would leave in the milk.

[tnsven]

Skim the cream off the top after it has had 12 hours or so to rise.

[countrygirl]

Thanks all for the replies. I will try skimming the cream before I pasteurize and see how that goes. Looking to try the whole range of Italian; work my way through at 2 a week.
My fridge still has plenty of room. Have been very disciplined and not tasted a single cheese since making the first last October. But soon.........

[KosherBaker]

I will try skimming the cream before I pasteurize .........

Do you always pasteurize your raw milk before making cheese with it?

[countrygirl]

Yep. I always have, so far, mainly to ensure no pathogens. In Australia, it is illegal to buy milk from the farmer, I have been told, because of the risk of listeria etc if the milk is not pasteurised.  So I pasteurise it for safety's sake. Mind you, the children around here drink milk straight from the cow and don't get sick,while city kids coming to the country have a history of getting sick from fresh milk. I think there is a certain amount of immunity that goes into the equation.