Whatever I make that I am going to share with others, I pasteurize the milk before preparing it. For ice cream, custard, etc., it's all part of the process of preparing the finished product. With the cheeses, I heat the milk to 180 degrees then cool it to continue. Now that I am going to get enough milk to make it worthwhile in the mornings, should I pasteurize drinking milk before I refrigerate it? I have always drank mine raw but when my granddaughters are here, I cannot legally give raw milk to them. It makes more sense to me to pasteurize it when I bring it in rather than cool it and do that later. However, it is my understanding that we cool it immediately to stop the bacteria growth to retain the sweet flavor and the faster it is cooled, the sweeter the milk will be. So my question is, when I want to pasteurize it for drinking, should I cool it to nearly freezing and do it later and do it right from the does?
I am so looking forward to next month when I should have enough milk for me to start making cream cheese again! This time, it will all be from my own girls. :-)
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Oh, my 50 percent. Guess that will not be my primary ice cream, at least not year around. Great thing about vanilla and chocolate, it is not seasonal (or frozen). I will try it, however, and see how it goes. If it was tofu and no one knew it, then it should work with milk. <g>
That's pretty cool! I really was just teasing because it seems so ironic! And yes it does make perfectly good sense! I am very proud to find anyone who can do something so difficult as to give up meat for so long. That's like giving up cigarettes or drinking or something. I never thought about seriously being addicted to FOOD, but giving up something like meat is a big deal!
It actually makes sense if you know that we stopped eating meat for ethical reasons, and today we only eat meat that we grew ourselves or that was grown by a farmer that we know and trust. I haven't eaten factory farmed meat since 1989.
I can not believe ya'll were vegetarians and now you raise your own meat! I am sorry, but that IS just a little bit funny!
When we lived in the burbs and were vegetarians, we used to make a strawberry tofu ice cream that everyone LOVED! We fed it to everyone, and no one had a clue that it had tofu in it. I just pulled out the recipe, wondering what the ratio of strawberries was, and it's 50% strawberries to tofu and milk! So I think Margaret nailed it for you!
I second that! Love it!!!
So Glenna your saying you need 50% strawberries to make you happy! So what you want is strawberries and cream! LOL!
"Some people have an IRA; we're saving up cheddar for retirement." Love it!!!
Very good info, Deborah, and explains the mozz as well. I do so want to make cheddar successfully. For our sauerbrauten dinners, my middle son is limited to cream cheese and gluten-free crackers instead of the fondue and rye bread. When I have some goat cheddar, I will try to make the fondue (Rheinlander's recipe) that we love so. While he loves the cream cheese, it would be nice for him to have a choice. I am so delighted he can eat the goat milk products; it makes such a difference. Among other things, I need not feel guilty about ice cream - we can all eat it. Now that I have the vanilla and chocolate recipes down to what everyone likes, I'm working on the strawberry but am not hopeful. The last batch was 1/4 strawberries and still didn't taste strawberry-ey enough. Recently, someone suggested using free-dried berries but that sort of defeats the purpose of all natural.
Ricotta, queso blanco, and panir have to be heated to a higher temp, but most other cheeses (like mozz) won't set up if the milk is overheated. Yesterday I was planning to make chevre, and I accidentally heated the milk to 180, so I used the milk for some ricotta and yogurt. I don't worry about pasteurizing milk to make mozz because it's going to be used on either pizza or lasagna, which are cooked to a heat far beyond pasteurization.
As for everything else, I decide whether or not to pasteurize based upon the results. My chevre and yogurt are simply better quality when the milk is pasteurized. The yogurt is much thicker, although I stress "my" results because I've had other people say their yogurt is thicker when they use raw milk. The other thing is that I can't successfully reculture my yogurt with raw milk, which is sad! My chevre is so thick that it is not spreadable when I use raw, so I pasteurize for that. Everything else I use raw. And if you're making aged cheese, that is legal to sell (by certified dairies) if it is aged for more than 60 or 90 days. I can't remember which, but I personally don't eat cheddar before six months, so I don't put much brain power into trying to remember the government's guidelines. :) We now have some cheddars that are more than 2 years old and some parmesan that is more than 3 years old. Some people have an IRA; we're saving up cheddar for retirement.
Thank you, Deborah. Yes, with ice cream and custard I do cook it but not to a boil (unless by accident) and take it to 170. I have found the ice cream is much better when it gets to 170 versus even 165 and often take it to 180. There is something in that last ten degrees that leads it to be "creamier" and that bit better.
I've been taking the milk for ricotta to boiling (per the recipe I am using) and for the cream cheese to 180 then cooling it. I only made the mozzarella once and it was more like rictotta (gave up early) so we may have just hit upon the reason - milk temp. Because I want to try cheddar, I am very glad to know about the 145 from someone who really does this as I really don't want to wait months for something to not be good.
The information about pasteurizing for drinking is good to know since it would be much easier to do it right after milking when I know for certain my granddaughters are coming over. I have some quart milk jars that would be perfect for storing it in so I know for certain that batch is no longer raw.
It's so different than when I was a child myself as we didn't do any of that. The only milk that was not raw was ice cream because it was a custard base (and custard and pies of course). Even the cottage cheese was just set in the gallon jar until it curdled.
I find it amazing that we have an overpopulated world with everyone drinking raw milk for so many, many centuries and in the last 100 years it is so "critical" it be done.<g> (Please don't misunderstand, folks, I believe in food safety but it is through cleanliness and good sense not the "safe" being pushed down us by the government funded by big business with profit, not us, in mind.)
This is a late start this morning so I am expecting another quart or so from my girls. That sounds so much better than pushing for the two-cup goal I had nearly a year ago.
Before I forget -- if you are going to be using milk for anything cooked, there is no point in pasteurizing. When you make ice cream and custard, I'm assuming you boil the mixture? If so, that milk is pasteurized the second it hits 170 degrees.
As for cheese ... most milk for cheese should be pasteurized at 145 degrees for 30 minutes or you denature the proteins and the cheese doesn't work.
If you are planning to pasteurize for drinking, you can do it at any time. Pasteurizing will stop the bacteria growth also, so there is no benefit to cooling and then pasteurizing.