Cream....?

jackie g wrote:

the cream or fat content of goat and sheep milk is lower than cow milk generally but yes, you can get cream but it is not worth doing it economically for the producer. in countries such as greece and cyprus, they do make goats milk butter because they rely much more on goats for milk than cows. it tastes quite nice but is very white !!

The reason its very white is the goats (and indeed cows and other ruminants) in those countries are often stall fed, or have a diet low in green vegetation. The nice yellow that we associate with butter here in Ireland is a product of cows digesting the chlorophyll in grass- butter in France (largest selling brand would be President) is pure white and looks like lard.

I grew up on a farm and kept a small flock of goats- British Saanan, lovely white goats with beards who used to come running up to me as I walked up the driveway to the house on my way home from school. We milked them every morning and evening- and made our own yoghurt etc. The creaminess of the milk varied with the diet of the animals- and goats have some strange likes and dislikes (they love things like apple trees and even ivy).
The milk from our goats would have been a creamier yellow colour than regular milk here- and the cream easily harvested from it (regular milk here is homogenised- that is the cream is equally dispersed in the milk- so it does not collect on the top of the milk despite its lower density).

Taste of the cream depended on the diet of the goats- some farms capitalise on the fact that goats will eat virtually anything and have contracts with restraunts to dispose of their food waste. We were given all the vegetables that people left in Superquinn etc (likes of Brocolli stalks, outer cabbage leaves etc).

Hmmmm- my favourite goat was called Natasha- I still have her bell in the kitchen here.

jackie g wrote:

hi smccarrick,

enjoyed your post - we have a mixed organic farm and have just added milking goats to our menargie. they are lovely and have just kidded for the first time in the past few weeks. they enjoy a very varied diet along with organic and free-range conditions - milk so far has been delicious. we hope to start making cheese later this year. i have one favourite goat too !! - she is so friendly.

They are really friendly creatures, and verymuch have their own personalities.
We weren't adventurous enough to make our own cheese, yoghurt is a doddle though- we used make it over-night on the cold ring of an old Aga range- and flavour it with fruit that we grew on the farm (loganberries were the most popular, which is a bit odd, as they are a little bitter). We sweetened the yoghurt with honey- it was yummy!

Best of good luck with your goats, they really are very pleasant creatures altogether.

S.