Separating cream

Our first doe is pregnant and due at the end of Feburary so we'll be milking for the first time.  My question is how does everyone separate their cream?  I've read about people letting the milk settle and spooning the cream off the top, how long do you have to let it sit for the cream to rise to the top?  I've also read the mechanical cream separators don't work very well, has anyone used one?

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  • I have two mechanical seperators.  They do work, but you must use 90-100 degree milk, and be prepared to adjust the screw to allow you to get milk and cream both.    I used to let milk sit for 4-6 days in fridge before I could skim. 

  • I let my goats milk rise in glass jars in the frig - and yep - it took about a week for me to have enough cream to make bout 1/4 c. butter ;/  I was pulling off bout a TBL at a time.... good luck!

  • Were they talking about cow or goat milk? That would work really well with cow milk because it separates within hours, but goat milk takes close to a week to get a lot of separation.

    Rose Stuart said:

    i havent done any milking yet...im letting mama raise the baby....but i read an article whose author said she uses those containers with a spigot that you put in yr fridge for water or whatever....she just puts her milk in the container in the fridge and when the cream has risen to the top she just draws the milk portion out with the spigot. It leaves the cream in the container ...then she just removes the spigot and pours the cream into a another container. Puts that container into the freezer and keeps adding to it until she has enuf to make butter. sounded like a easy and inexpensive way to do it to me.
    when i get the baby weaned im gonna try it.
  • i havent done any milking yet...im letting mama raise the baby....but i read an article whose author said she uses those containers with a spigot that you put in yr fridge for water or whatever....she just puts her milk in the container in the fridge and when the cream has risen to the top she just draws the milk portion out with the spigot. It leaves the cream in the container ...then she just removes the spigot and pours the cream into a another container. Puts that container into the freezer and keeps adding to it until she has enuf to make butter. sounded like a easy and inexpensive way to do it to me.
    when i get the baby weaned im gonna try it.
  • Yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream, etc are all fine when stored in the frig until they start to grow mold. Sour cream and buttermilk use the same culture, but one uses milk, the other uses cream. In fact, with ND milk, if you just let it sit long enough on the counter, the buttermilk gets as thick as sour cream because of the high butterfat. Between my homemade yogurt and buttermilk, I don't even bother with separating cream to make sour cream.

    Anna Cummings said:
    It was a culture for sour cream or buttermilk.  Which I wondered how it could do both, but the direction for each were bringing it to different temps for different times.  After about a week of it sitting in the fridge it tasted more like sour cream, but by then I was afraid to use it because I didn't know how long it could sit.  So I gave it to the chickens.
  • It was a culture for sour cream or buttermilk.  Which I wondered how it could do both, but the direction for each were bringing it to different temps for different times.  After about a week of it sitting in the fridge it tasted more like sour cream, but by then I was afraid to use it because I didn't know how long it could sit.  So I gave it to the chickens.
  • Was it labeled as a sour cream culture or a mesophilic or thermophilic culture or ______?

    Anna Cummings said:
    I'm pretty sure it was from Cultures for Health.
  • What did you use to make it?

    Melissa Johnson said:

    I did what it said to do - put it in a thermos and let it sit.  Hum, didnt know it could get too hot and be softer.  What ever it was, my daughter refused to eat it LOL

  • I'm pretty sure it was from Cultures for Health.
  • Which culture did you use? The culture is one of the things that determines the taste.

    Anna Cummings said:
    mmmm.... I tried sour cream, but it turned out tasting like yogurt.  But I did accidentally let it get too hot, so maybe that was the problem?
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