Pasteurizing goat milk is a good idea.

It has been a wreckage of a day. I mainly stayed in baking muffins that included goat milk, for Dr. Farmer Moomin to take to work with him tomorrow. He likes to share the goodies I bake for him with his work buddies. Some of whom are also members of his hockey team. Hilariously, they call themselves, The Goats. I doubt most of them have ever been within 20 yards of a goat. They really should declare our new goat Cinnamon, their official mascot, since they will all likely be consuming a gift from her tomorrow.

Milking today, could have been a nastier experience than it was. I could have been milking outside in the open in the rain. Fortunately we moved the milking stand into the side of the goat shed closed off to the goats. We let them in one at a time for milking. They get milked, they get to leave and the next one comes in to partake of the sweet feed while I wring the milk out of it’s teats.

The process of milking, goes as follows, I start before the goat is on the stand. I load the attached bowl with sweet feed. Then I let the goat in. It has to stick it’s head through the apparatus that holds them at the neck while I milk and while they munch sweet feed. My next step is sanitary wipes I wipe the teats with to clean them. Nex,t I dip the tips of each teat into iodine balanced for use in milking goats. I do one more wipe with the wipes cleaning off the iodine. I then express each teat a couple of times because those first few sprays of milk contain the most ick that you don’t want to be consuming. After that I put the bucket under the goat. I begin milking until the teats and the sacks of milk above them go from hard to soft and floppy. The milk passes through the first strainer on it’s way from the goat’s teat into the bucket.

Once all the milk is gathered into the top half of the double boiler and has passed through strainer one on it’s way from the goat into the bucket, which then gets dumped into the top half of the double boiler, I bring it into the house.

Once in the house, I set up the full double boiler filling the bottom half part way with water. Then sticking the top half full of milk on top. I add a thermometer, turn on the stove’s flame and then I wait. mixing regularly. I watch as the temperature of the milk rises.  When it hits about 130 Fahrenheit, I fill a large bowl with ice and water and set it to the side. I bring the milk to a little bit above 161 Fahrenheit. Then I count slowly to 20, holding it at that temperature. I turn off the stove’s flame, and lift the top portion of the double boiler containing the milk out of the bottom half that contains water, and carefully I lower the bottom of the top half of the double boiler into the bowl of ice water, and I hold it there for a while. With a second thermometer, I regularly test the milk’s temperature till it has reach just under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I strain it a second time, into a clean and sterile jar. I twist on the lid, and it goes to live in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

I know this process sounds rather hyper for cleanliness. But remember, this milk is milk we plan to consume. We will literally eat it in muffins, ice cream, butter, cheese, or in a cup of coffee with some sugar. Being clean is super important when one is going to consume milk from one’s own animals. It is not the only important thing. Another important thing, is to make sure the animals you are getting milk from appear to be in good health, and to maintain that health while they are in milk. The last important thing to do is to pasteurize.

Why pasteurize? Yes yes, I know many are very into this fad of raw milk. But raw milk, is a dangerous game. Which is not to say all raw milk is dangerous. It isn’t all dangerous. The right farmer that really looks after the health of his animals and has them super super regularly checked and dealt with by a licensed vet may be able to offer clean safe raw milk. If you are going to go that route, that is your business but I wouldn’t advise it. For several reasons, that level of vet care is going to make that milk exceedingly expensive. If it isn’t that expensive then they aren’t doing due diligence and you are at risk every time you are drinking your raw milk. It’s a dangerous game. I am a farmer. I work every day. I milk three goats twice a day, I check in on my animals, plant my garden, do my own baking, knitting, spinning, self care product creation, household cleansers are also made by me. So, if I go down due to milk borne illness this place goes down with me. Raw milk is a risk I decline to take. Instead I pasteurize. Pasteurizing kills off bad bacteria that can cause food borne disease. It makes milk safer to drink, and it elongates it’s shelf life without having much effect on it’s nutritional quality.

While people drank unpasteurized milk for probably thousands of years before discovering that this technique, made milk safer, doesn’t mean that we should do the same. As we learn better we should do better. Not just with milk, with everything in our lives and worlds. The other thing people conveniently ignore about thousands of years ago and the time before we understood pasteurization, is the death rate and disease rate and abject suffering we caused ourselves as a species. Due to our ignorance of safer methods. T0day, we know better. I suspect humans of the past would wonder how much lead we have consumed if they saw us drinking milk raw, knowing that we know there is a safer method.

Then I often hear the “nature offers us what is best for us, if it was meant to be cooked it would come out of the goat pasteurized.” To them I say… And I say this as someone who has studied herbalism and plants as medicines through a program offered by a prestigious university…. Nature, also makes poisonous snakes. It makes grizzly bears and puts them in Alaska where people sometimes get closer than is safe. It makes all kinds of natural chemicals that are poisonous that can be found in a number of plants. Nature, is NOT our friend. Nor is she our enemy. She is unbiased and treats us the way we deserve based on the way we treat her. Nature, also gave us a brain. I think her intention in doing that was for us to use it, towards self preservation and so we could maintain our welfare by making unstupid choices about what we eat and drink. So we can find safer ways to feed ourselves. This is why, I am a strong advocate for pasteurization and why I pasteurize the milk I personally consume, and why I tell you that you should also.

Now you know the reasons, and the method.
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm