BS: Silly kitchen problem

Subject: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 01:40 PM

On Wednesday, I bought some milk in Waitrose. I have been using Channel Islands to scald and get the cream for my cereal, like we did in my childhood (and the guy at the cherry farm, as well, so I'm not unique.) But here was some ordinary whole milk reduced to 29p for 2 pints. Also on 3 for 2 offer. So I got three bottles.

As I was scalding it I realised that it was actually homogenised, and no cream was going to surface, and planned to use it for desserts, and drinking.

But when I went to start cooking it last night, I found that the lot had curdled. Not turned, there's no souring, in fact it's rather bland. I am currently straining it with the intention of making cheesecake.

But why did it happen? It was in several covered containers, and not in a fridge, and each container had gone the same way. Any bugs in it should have been killed by the scalding, as that was the intention in the original process - and it didn't happen with the non-homogenised milk.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 01:58 PM

"Channel Islands." Would the Hawaiian Islands do?

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 02:12 PM

Channel Islands milk comes from Jersey and Guernsey cows who produce a milk with a higher fat content, and a yellower colour which I assume is due to their being grass fed. It isn't homogenised. What does Hawaii have in the milk line?

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Crowhugger
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 03:17 PM

Not an uncommon experience.

Curdled milk results from the level of acid in the milk becoming higher than normal (which makes for a lower pH level). At normal milk pH levels, the protein molecules repel each other. As pH goes down (acidity goes up) curdling occurs when the protein molecules no longer repel each another. Heat speeds up this process considerably. When milk goes sour it's due to growth of bacteria that produce acid as waste. There can be a small amount of acid from minor amounts of bacteria, not enough for the milk to taste off or to cause harm, but enough to curdle when heated. An example of is when one has sniffed the milk and/or tasted it to ensure it's ok and it's fine, yet a minute or two after pouring, it has curdled in one's coffee or tea. Depending on nose sensitivity and levels of acidity, one may or may not notice a slight sour smell in the rising steam.

Back to your issue: If you drain those curds you'll have cottage cheese. Keep refrigerated and use fairly promptly--I've been told 3 days but when I've stored it in a very clean glass container like a mason jar with a new lid, and at no more than 40F (4C), I've had it last 7 days or longer. Should you find the flavour too tangy, wash the curds again (or twice more) in water and re-drain. Can be drained by gravity by hanging in a muslin bag or put the bag in a strainer and put weight on top (use plate to fit just inside the strainer with tinned food on top). When drained under weight the result is firm enough to slice, as in paneer or tofu. I'm not big on making cheesecake so I can't say which drain method is best for that. I can, however, say that the cheese is yummy with a bit of added salt & pepper, fresh or dried herbs, and an optional jot of flavourful oil like olive or sesame, spread on toast or bread or crackers. Mmmm... Or mixed with bread crumbs & basil to top baked tomato halves.

For my favourite drainer strainer I made a fitted muslin liner by sewing darts into a flat piece of tightly woven muslin--put darts to outside when using. I find grocery story cheesecloth to be silly--far too loosely woven and not wide enough. My strainer nicely fits/accepts a pot lid instead of using disposable plastic wrap. I prefer a strainer to bag hanging because draining can be done in the fridge, which I figure helps with shelf life.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 07:00 PM

Penny S, thanks for the answer to my facetious question concerning "Channel Islands."

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 13 - 08:00 PM

Could it have something to do with the heatwave?

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: LadyJean
Date: 20 Jul 13 - 12:17 AM

My cousins raised brown swiss when I was small. I can remember riding in a car with a jug full of, I suspect, unpasteurized, brown swiss milk on the floor of the back seat. It spilled, and after a short while the car was unbearable, and the smell lasted for days. Brown swiss milk also has a high fat content.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 13 - 02:24 AM

Penny, I don't think most Americans have ever seen non-homogenized milk. It just comes that way, and Pasteurized as well. I grew up spending my summers at a dairy farm, which is why I have a real good idea of where milk comes from and how it is before it gets processed. But it has been decades since I've seen whole unadulterated milk.

That said, I read something recently (or heard an interview on the radio) about the different kinds of cultures you can do with milk. If I find it I'll post a link here.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 13 - 01:32 PM

In Canada, as well as the States, milk in stores comes homogenized, 1 or 2 percent fat.
We can buy cream for whipping, or "half-and-half" for coffee (or for cereal if we want more butterfat than the milk). I haven't bought half-and-half for years, so don't know the percentages or how it is reconstituted.

Years ago, in Austin, Texas, we could buy jersey cow milk, un-homogenized, sold by one dairy there.

When I was a child (1920s-1930s), milk was non-homogenized. I loved the cream, and would drink it "off the top." In winter, milk delivered to the door would partially freeze, and the contents of the bottle would push the cream out the top as a semi-solid cylinder.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Joe_F
Date: 20 Jul 13 - 05:59 PM

In the '70s, I lived in a commune in VA that had a dairy. The day's milk was put in a large, refrigerated dispenser in the kitchen. As the day wore on, its output got creamier & creamier until it was cream. At that point, it was meritorious to decant the remainder into gallon jugs & put them in the fridge for the milk processors to turn into sour cream, cream cheese, etc., the next day. One could also, of course, use the (nearly solid) cream to make mugs of cocoa, perhaps spiked with grain alcohol, to drink with one's sweetie at bedtime.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Crowhugger
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 12:10 AM

SRS I'm sure you're correct about most North Americans not seeing non-homogenized milk. Sad that people are so disconnected from food. My father's best friend was and still is a farmer so I had the experience as a child of knowing exactly where food comes from. And how much work it takes to produce. And we always had a vegetable garden from the time my parents first bought a house.

To continue with a bit more thread drift:

There's a clever fix in place nowadays to get around the Canada's health laws yet still gain access to non-homogenized/unpasteurized milk (it is illegal to sell or buy unpasteurized milk in Canada). While I don't think it's illegal to buy or sell non-homogenized milk, it's pretty much unavailable except directly from a farmer, therefore it's typically unpasteurized therefore illegal. But it is not illegal to consume one's own milk, so to beat the system some farmers now sell cowshares, which are exactly what they sound like: a share in the cow. Thus the shareholders also already own their portion of any milk produced, so the farmer isn't caught by the no-selling law nor is the milk-owner breaking the no-buy law. The farmer also makes more money per litre than wholesale pays. The shareholders are paying the farmer to feed, board and milk their percentage of the cow.

The "homogenized" milk to which Q refers is 3.5% fat (used to be 4% when I was a kid). Whipping cream is 35%, "cereal cream" is 18%. Half-and-half cream is 10%. Non-homogenized milk disappeared along with home delivery of milk. Milk that separates is more expensive than homogenized for high-volume handling, as it keeps having to be stirred to ensure a consistent product.

Joe F, I once spent a bit of time on a hippie goat farm and have somewhat similar memories.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 10:05 AM

'We can buy cream for whipping, or "half-and-half" for coffee (or for cereal if we want more butterfat than the milk).'

There is now a list of ingredients in cream products other than milk. It has turned me off cream completely. The following is an example.

Milk
Cream
Carboxymethyl cellulose
Guar gum
Carob bean gum
Mono and diglycerides
Carrageenan

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Penny S.
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 10:43 AM

The odd thing remains that it has not soured. I have made cheese. I have made a "cheesecake" with some of the cheese, but it remains sloppy. And has no tang to it, apart from that imparted by the not fully ripe cherries I cooked with a little sugar. I have one little tub of cottage cheese left for cottage cheesy purposes. (Chopped chives I think, plus a little salt.) I am currently reducing the whey in the slow cooker with the top open to use as stock in soup because of the umaminess of it. (There's a tiny amount of proto-ricotta appearing.)
There is a farm near me, but in a direction that is difficult to go, that sells unpasteurised milk. I briefly remembered the flavour from visits to a farming friend of my mother's in my childhood when someone mentioned it on TV, but have failed to recall it since. The selling of it is under threat currently - I wonder if they know about the shares idea. When I first drank it, I had seen the cow milked by hand, and the milk poured through the cooler in the milk parlour - my goodness, people would have conniptions now!
The milker went on a retirement trip to New Zealand, and she and her husband went to a place that taught about milk - a sort of lecture theatre for tourists. In came the cow, and they demonstrated hand milking. Then they picked a random member of the audience, expecting a few laughs, but picked my Mum's friend. Up she goes, sits on the stool, pushed her head in the cow's flank, grabs the teats and into the bucket flows the white stuff. "You've done this before, haven't you?" says the guy, to general amusement.
Incidentally, Mum's friend was able to avoid being vaccinated against smallpox, as she had had cowpox as a child!
It is amazing how much the world has changed within what is no longer living memory, but the memory of those we have known. Scarey, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 12:03 PM

Great story, Penny!

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 12:12 PM

I remember gold-top from my childhood, and pourong the cream on my cornflakes. yummy..... Does anyone remeber when milk was delivered to the doorstep (silver top) and it was really cold - a milk lolly would grown out of the top of the bottle.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Jul 13 - 07:55 PM

Growing up in the 1950s I drank a lot of homogenized/unpasteurized milk, sometimes still warm from the cow -- my grandparents had the oldest dairy farm in Clark County, Wisconsin. All of the milk (except what they kept for home use) they trucked (in milk cans) to the Colby cheese factory a couple miles away. (Mostly mixed herds of Holsteins with some Guernseys and maybe a Jersey. Knew people with Brown Swiss and Ayrshires, but none in my extended family.)

My parents and I lived in the big city -- Milwaukee -- but most of my relatives had small dairy farms in north-central Wisconsin mostly between Colby and Stetsonville.

I seldom drink milk and haven't for close to 50 years. If I do, it's whole milk, but, as I said, seldom. I eat lots of cheese, though. And butter.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Rumncoke
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 01:50 PM

My grandparents on my father's side had a shop in a village in Derbyshire, England.

My grandmother made ice cream using the old ice and salt in an outer container, and stir the contents of an inner container with a hand crank device.

Whenever the ice man had passed by there would be a queue at the door waiting for the ice cream to be made.

The cream was straight from a prize winning herd of Jersey cows at a local farm, and the ice cream was call 'forget-me-not'.

The village doctor used to prescribe it for children who did not thrive.

Unpasteurised milk used to be sold in bottles with green tops, high milk fat had gold tops and the ordinary milk had silver ones.

I have made spare milk into soft cheese and leftover cream into butter - processes which mystified most and had one girl telling me that I shouldn't eat the cheese because it had 'gone bad'. I was working in the labs of Allied Lyons, the food manufacturers, at the time. Everything came into the works in sacks and tubs - already processed, so most of the staff had got no idea about real foods.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Penny S.
Date: 22 Jul 13 - 01:52 PM

Sounds asa though your grandparents had the same idea as those friends. A herd of mainly Friesians (I'm not sure what the difference is between them and Holsteins, as they look the same, and people call their black and white cows over here Holsteins now) with a couple of either Guernsey or Jersey to make sure the butter fat was up to the right level for the dairy to accept it. They put the milk into metal churns (which were not used for churning) and took them out to a stand by the farm entrance, from where they were picked up by the dairy lorry, which left empty cleaned churns for the next lot. Then they had to install a tank at the milking parlour and tarmac the track from the road for the dairy tanker. You can still see the old stands by some farms.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Bettynh
Date: 23 Jul 13 - 11:36 AM

I've been driving to a farm for milk for a long time. In the 70s, the farmwife bottled milk from the farm's tank, the rest going off to a collective for processing. So that was unhomogenized raw milk. Massachusetts allows raw milk to be sold at the farm only. These days at another farm I can buy homogenized or unhomogenized milk but it's all pasteurized. There's no guarantee on butterfat content, but even the homogenized milk develops a ring of cream at the top. They don't sell unprocessed milk off the farm - they make ice cream in quantity and still conduct milk deliveries in a small area. The current fashion for local and raw food has made them quite popular, though the farm refuses to sell raw milk. The biggest problem for them at the moment is the glass bottles. For now, the deposit on a quart bottle is almost as much as the cost of the milk within. That's fine for me - I return the same number of bottles that I buy each trip (usually about every 2 weeks). They've begun bottling half-gallons in plastic recently. I hope they can hold out with the glass bottles for awhile. They've also begun labelling some of their milk organic. This means, I think, that they separate out milk from animals that haven't received antibiotics or hormones in feed or any other way. They grow their own hay, presumably without chemicals, so that could be called "organic" anyway and have pledged never to administer hormones,but what about animals treated for sickness? It gets complex. Recently they've also offered pork and beef in small, rather pricy frozen packages. More cash for them, and I can at least have a hamburger once in awhile feeling safe since the source is identifiable and small. Next, I hope, chickens.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: gnu
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 04:30 AM

Great thread!

I was a jock at uni and increased my consumption of milk to 12 glasses (minimum) per day so I started drinking skim milk. The first week was YECH! but after two weeks, 2% was YECH! times ten. I can barely handle 1% and only drink milk in tea. Not much of a story but it's all I got.

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 10:08 AM

When I was a kid in Minnesota, in the 30s and 40s, the daily milk (unhomogenized in those days) delivery came in a quart glass bottle (no surprise there!), but the bottle had a constricted neck, with a wider bulb above it; I guess you might call it a cream reservoir.
    The cream from the milk rose, of course, and we had what I'd call a runcible spoon, sort of a little dipper or ladle shape, just the right diameter to block the restricted neck, so that we could pour off the cream above it for whatever use we had for cream. When the cream in the bulb was poured off, it left what I suppose was maybe an ounce or ounce and a half of cream with the remainder of the quart of milk, so that it wasn't really skim milk as we'd buy it today. I don't know what the resultant butterfat percentage was.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: sciencegeek
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 11:13 AM

yes... in the USA, the Dept. of Agriculture has regulations that are beyond belief... including the prohibitting of even giving milk to employees.... only family members living on the dairy can drink raw milk from the bulk tank. but that's the best tasting of all! if you like it cooler than cow body temperature... lol

the days of milking a few cows & sending the milk out in steel milk cans are over... now they have to have oversized herds to make all the bank payments on the equipment needed to operate "according to Hoyle"...

I remember in South Jersey ( the southern tip of the state of New Jersey) when visiting my grandparents... the milk bottle with the thick layer of good yellow cream on top ( reserved for use only in my grandfather's morning coffee) and yellow 'cause it would be summer & the cows were on good pasture.

I have Scottish Highland cattle which give good milk, but I haven't trained any of the girls to hold still for milking. Another task for retirement when there's more time - wishful thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Silly kitchen problem
From: Penny S.
Date: 24 Jul 13 - 01:43 PM

The cottage cheese is good, mixed with chives. And I've found the farm that sells raw milk is closer to me than I thought. They also make a prize winning cheddar type cheese.