Getting our own goats wasn't just because we wanted another pet (the stranger, the better!) but we wanted to have our own milk, make our own cheese and even try our hand at butter. I really didn't research much into the butter part of it because who would have thought that making something so simple could be so difficult? Well, turns out it wasn't quite as hard as I thought it would be!
Our first try ended in disaster. We left the milk sit in the fridge for a week but when we skimmed it, it had a very strong goat smell to it. Yuck! We found out the trick to it is pasteurizing the milk first.
After you've finished milking, strain your milk into a pot and heat it up to 165 degrees. When it reaches temp, shut off the burner and wait 15 seconds and then submerge the pot in a bowl of ice water to quickly cool it down.
After it's cooled down some you can put it in a container and cool it the rest of the way in the freezer. In an hour, take it out and put it somewhere that it won't be jostled in the fridge and leave it sit for 10 days.
When it was time to take our jar out (we had saved two days worth), I also took out any others that had developed any cream at the top. I skimmed the cream out with a measuring spoon (a tablespoon to be exact).
I put all of the cream I could get into my mixing bowl and in the end, I was starting to get a lot more than I thought I would. Last year our doe had a hard time producing much cream at all and this year I was getting big chunks of it.
Most people put their cream into a jar and then shake it up but I put mine in the mixing bowl and used my stand mixer to get the job done. It's a little messy but by being careful I was able to not get cream all over the place.
It will start out really watery and then gradually thicken until the butter forms into a ball. I then took the butter out and placed it into a bowl.
Here was my reward and it was a lot more than what I was expecting! When I was finished admiring it I rinsed it out under some cold water. I let the water run over it and moved it around a bit then dumped the water and repeated the process until the water was clear (two or three times should do it).
When it was rinsed out good, I mixed a little bit of salt into it and then put it in a container and popped it in the fridge. Look at how snow white it is, this is how your butter
should be! The butter you get in the store that's yellow is actually food coloring.
So not only do you end up with delicious butter (and no hint of goat now that I'd done it right!) but this yummy buttermilk too. Yum! What would you use your buttermilk for??
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