# How do you cool your milk fast enough?



## HillsideWayCSA (Feb 22, 2010)

So far it's taken about half a bucket of ice to get the milk chilled down to 40 within about 45 minutes. But since it takes so much ice and unfortunately my fridge doesn't have an ice maker in it I've been pulling double duty with the ice trays. It's exhausting and I tend to forget half the time. So before I go buying a new fridge with an ice maker I want to hear how all of you chill your milk fast enough to keep it "grade b" since there's no way to keep it "grade a" at home. For reference I'm going off the book Goats Produce Too. It's one of my favorite reads lately. 

I know this might belong over in the dairy boards but since most of you deal with milk on a daily basis I figured this would be a good place to start.


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## shiandpete.1 (Aug 13, 2008)

We milk and the immediately it gets strained into jars and put in the fridge. We never have an off taste and our herd share members love it as we do too.


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## LaManchaPaul (May 21, 2008)

shiandpete.1 said:


> We milk and the immediately it gets strained into jars and put in the fridge. We never have an off taste and our herd share members love it as we do too.


Same here, I hand-milk into a strip cup then pour into the filtered cup that drains into a half-gallon jar. However I top the jar and put the milk in the freezer until I finish chores - then to the fridge. It stays about 30 min in the freezer. DON'T FORGET to get it out of the freezer if you like your glass jars.
My fridge is set at very cold. I have kept milk for three weeks without any change. 
I milk two does, twice a day. I may have to find a different way when three others will freshen within the next several weeks.


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## fiberaddict (Apr 6, 2010)

I use chill sticks (the blue frozen square-thingys) in the tote bucket. After each doe's milk is weighed, we pour it in there, over the sticks, and it chills it down pretty quickly. Not to 45*, but it's *cool* when I get back to the house to strain it.

All I have to do is wash the sticks when I wash up the milking equipment, and re-freeze them.


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## HillsideWayCSA (Feb 22, 2010)

I use to do the fridge method too but then I got this book with the cheese pantry kit from Hoegger's and it says it takes 8 hours to chill to 40 if just stuck in the fridge. If left in the freezer it's suppose to take an 1 1/2 hours to get to 40. Those methods are considered Grade D and Grade E. Since I'm not pasteurizing the milk I'm trying to get it as close to Grade A as possible. 

Any one else?


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## HillsideWayCSA (Feb 22, 2010)

The sticks sound like a good idea. I was searching to see if there are any insulated buckets. You know like those beer glasses that have the ice in the cup. I bet that'd cool it down fast if you milked into one of those. Or freeze a layer of ice onto the milk bucket itself. Hmm.. I'm going to have to play with that one.


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## HilltopDaisy (Feb 26, 2003)

I use the ice cube method. I make extra ice cubes and keep them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Actually, I think it would be a good idea to make bigger cubes in yogurt cups, make several ahead each day. I strain my milk into quart canning jars, no lid yet, and set into a large pot of ice water. I stir the milk every so often to help it cool faster. It only takes 15 minutes to chill it this way.

By the way, I've tasted goat milk at other peoples homes. They think it tastes fine, but I could hardly swallow it because it tasted so nasty to me. I talked about chilling the milk and they said "Oh we never do that, just pop it in the fridge!". Ewww.


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## The Tin Mom (Dec 30, 2008)

A great trick that I learned here is to make a mixture of 50% water & 50% isopropyl(sp) alcohol (90%) & keep it in the freezer. It should create a slush that makes it easy to put the jar into - too frozen=add more alcohol, too watery=add more water.

I filter my milk into jars and then put the jars into the mixture. This morning, after I milked my 4th doe, the milk from my Herd Queen had ice in it (about an hour later)...

After I am done, I put my milk in the freezer or the fridge & then put the containers back in the freezer until the next time I milk.

This doesn't use tons of ice & is handy. I have found that I need to keep the mixture in the freezer or an ice chest until I am ready to put the milk in it.

HTH.


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## Jay27 (Jan 11, 2010)

We immediately filter into quart mason jars and then put them in the fridge. We have never had issues with funny-tastes or milk spoiling before we can use it. I am just too busy to care about chilling the milk to 40 degrees as fast as possible. People didn't worry about this kind of stuff 50 years ago... K.I.S.S methodology all the way! 

(K.I.S.S = keep it simple stupid)


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## Pony (Jan 6, 2003)

Yup, like Jay27 said: Get it into the house, filter it, put in the back of the fridge.

It gets cold, it stays cold, and it usually doesn't last long enough to taste bad. (Except for that quart that got pushed behind some other stuff, but it made great bread.)


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## billooo2 (Nov 23, 2004)

I strain into half gallon glass jars, and then put them in the sink......and I keep soft drink bottles (filled about 3/4 with water) in the freezer. I put those bottles in the sink also. I have not really timed it, but it does not take very long at all. When the milk is cool, I just put the soft drink bottle back in the freezer. By using the bottles, I do not have to fuss with ice cubes.


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## shiandpete.1 (Aug 13, 2008)

HilltopDaisy said:


> By the way, I've tasted goat milk at other peoples homes. They think it tastes fine, but I could hardly swallow it because it tasted so nasty to me. I talked about chilling the milk and they said "Oh we never do that, just pop it in the fridge!". Ewww.


I am really particular about milk and nasty milk just starts my gag reflex off so easily, never has my "just popped" into the fridge ever made me gag. I also think cleanliness also has a lot to do with taste. If our milk that is immediately refridgerated tasted bad I wouldn t keep my customers. Now I have had bad tasting goats milk from others but they waited until they milked all 10 head and dumped milk into totes and then went to the house to strain and cool.


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## HillsideWayCSA (Feb 22, 2010)

I was discussing cooling milk with my aunt cause she use to milk cows as a kid. She said they always cooled the milk in the cold spring before putting it away. I've read that other places too so I have a feeling some people cared about chilling their milk even back then. 

As far as chilling it being complicated. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'd be worried about how long bacteria is given to flourish with the milk taking so long to chill. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who makes an effort to chill it as quickly as possible. 

The alcohol idea sounds like a good one. I bet heavily salted water would work too since the freezing temperature goes down when you add salt to water. I think I might play scientist today and see if a pail of heavily salted water in the freezer would make a good chilling bath. 

I've also thought about pouring the milk into my electric ice cream maker. The bowls are frozen and it has a paddle. It'd resemble the way a commercial milk chiller would work.


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## 4piecesof8 (Apr 7, 2010)

I'm glad I read this thread. Where I live in Alaska, I still have snow and ice on the ground in the shade. I prepare a foot washing tub with cold water and snow and ice mixed. After I milk and strain, I place the pail into the icy water for about 15 mins then I'll strain it again into my mason jars or glass pitcher to finish chilling in the fridge.

I've tried coverd and leaving it open. I've tried just cooling in the fridge. Then I did a sneaky mama trick. I poured glasses of each kind of nice cold milk and had the kids and husband try them both. ( I already knew which I prefered) and we did a taste test. It was 100% on the poll for keep cooling uncovered cool quickly.

As my snow melts away, I was wondering how I would keep a good thing going here about cooling the milk quickly. Thanks for all the ideas!


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## Jay27 (Jan 11, 2010)

OK... my engineering brain has gotten the best of me. Despite the fact that I don't do anything special to chill milk, IF I WAS GOING TO, I would chill the milk in the milking lines. Chilling in the lines would cool it down much more thoroughly and quickly due due to the small volume that is being chilled. It would be as simple as passing the milk line through a bucket of icy water (or any incorporation of the ideas using alcohol and salt water). For those who milk by hand, I would modify a milking bucket with a line coming out the bottom and then pass that line through a chiller before depositing the milk into a jar (or another bucket).


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## nehimama (Jun 18, 2005)

This works really well for me, and I am currently only milking four head (Nigerians).

5-gallon bucket with a couple of those Blue Ice blocks laid in the bottom. Set the jar(s) on the Blue Ice blocks, and then heave in some ice cubes, then surround the jar(s) with more of the Blue Ice blocks. Finish filling the bucket with COLD water, up to the necks of the jars.

I, too, worried about the need to keep ahead on making ice, and the Blue Ice blocks took the worry out of that.

Never any bad-tasting milk here, and I agree with the poster who said cleanliness is extremely important.


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## HillsideWayCSA (Feb 22, 2010)

I've thought of using a cooling coil like brewers use for cooling wort before adding yeast. I started making beer about 4yrs ago but so far I've cooled my wort in the sink. If I ever do graduate to using a cooling coil that'd chill the milk pretty quick. The pasteurizers use the water bath method; hook up a hose to the sink that runs around the outside of the pasteurizer to chill the milk when it's done pasteurizing. But I don't care to pasteurize and my tap water only gets down to about 50.


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## BarbG (Aug 17, 2005)

Jay I love your cooling lines idea!! Right now we milk, strain and put it into a milk only fridge that is kept as cold as possible without freezing. And our milk keeps at least 10 days... actually probably much longer but it never lasts that long  But we are setting up a milking machine soon and your idea is so easy!! I thought about the frozen ice bottle inside the bucket but can't think of a way to clean it enough as plastic is poures and other then bleaching it, which I WILL NOT do, I can't think of another way to clean it. Thanks for sharing your great idea!! B


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## KimM (Jun 17, 2005)

This is how I do it also. The milk gets down to about 38Â° within 20 minutes of putting in the solution. I also give the jar a little swirl every 5 minutes. If you forget, the milk will freeze along the sides pretty fast but if that happens, I just put the jar in the fridge as it's plenty cold!
Some of the alcohol will evaporate over time as it thaws so I just add a bit more alcohol when it comes out of the freezer very hard. 





The Tin Mom said:


> A great trick that I learned here is to make a mixture of 50% water & 50% isopropyl(sp) alcohol (90%) & keep it in the freezer. It should create a slush that makes it easy to put the jar into - too frozen=add more alcohol, too watery=add more water.
> 
> I filter my milk into jars and then put the jars into the mixture. This morning, after I milked my 4th doe, the milk from my Herd Queen had ice in it (about an hour later)...
> 
> ...


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## Laverne (May 25, 2008)

I keep a big stainless steel pot of water in the fridge at all times so it is cold all the times. It will fit two half gallon jars of milk. If I need to put two jars in it at once, of warm milk, I add the blue Ice packs in it. One jar I usually just put it in the cold water. I have even swished the jars after a half hour to mix the cooling milk to quicken cooling, but have been lax with that lately. My milk lasts real good.


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## bloogrssgrl (Jan 20, 2008)

I was talking to the farmers that sell goat milk at our local market. Their daughter is the one that has the dairy goats. They said that she wraps an ice pack in a plastic baggie and puts it right into the bucket into which she is milking. As she milks the goats, the milk immediately goes onto the ice pack.


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## LomahAcres (Jan 21, 2007)

We take a gallon jug, fill it with water and add a few cups of salt to it. This works much the same as your aclahol/water mix. It gets down to about -10 in the freezer but doesn't freeze solid - just slush. When we milk, we use 2 buckets. One large bucket holds the salt water, one smaller bucket sits inside the salt water in the larger bucket - we milk right into this. When I tested it before, milk coming strait from milking to the house was 90', but when we used the salt water the milk was already down to 60' by the time we got to the house with it. Then its strained and put in the freezer for another 20-30 minutes - 45' milk, which then goes into the fridge.


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## ar_wildflower (Jan 2, 2010)

I only have one doe so I use a small cooler with blue ice packs and salt water. I carry the cooler to the barn with the metal pan inside. I milk into the pan return it to the cooler then take it to the house. Once I strain the milk into glass jars I put it back in the cooler. I may try the alcohol and water in the freezer or the wraped cold pack in the milk bucket now though. Very good thread.


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