Do I need a cream separator for goat's milk? And how do these work?

[SkyWarrior]

I asked this in the milking area and got no response. So, here are my questions:

How do cream separators work?
Do I need to get a cream separator for goat's milk?

And since I have your attention:

Would an antique one work? Or should I look for an electric one?

 

[Roll farms]

I saw your question in milking, I just didn't think I could give a good answer....google could probably give you much more detailed response.

How they work - The CS I've seen work by centrifical force (sp). - they spin the milk and the heavier cream goes one way, the skim milk another (that's realllllly simplifying it) into 2 different receptacles.

Do you need one - Do you want cream? It depends on how much patience you have....

I don't have the patience to skim cream off of goat milk that's sat in the fridge overnight, and I wanted to make butter. So I bought a seperator, the hand crank model. My tennis elbow and carpal tunnel said, "NO" so I sold it a week later.

An antique CS in good condtion should 'work' but an electric one would make life much easier. I couldn't justify the expense for our operation.

I did end up making butter w/ store-bought cream. Tasted JUST like....butter.

 

[SkyWarrior]

I saw your question in milking, I just didn't think I could give a good answer....google could probably give you much more detailed response.

How they work - The CS I've seen work by centrifical force (sp). - they spin the milk and the heavier cream goes one way, the skim milk another (that's realllllly simplifying it) into 2 different receptacles.

Do you need one - Do you want cream? It depends on how much patience you have....

I don't have the patience to skim cream off of goat milk that's sat in the fridge overnight, and I wanted to make butter. So I bought a seperator, the hand crank model. My tennis elbow and carpal tunnel said, "NO" so I sold it a week later.

An antique CS in good condtion should 'work' but an electric one would make life much easier. I couldn't justify the expense for our operation.

I did end up making butter w/ store-bought cream. Tasted JUST like....butter.

Okay, so it needs a lot of cranking?

Hmmm, maybe the electric IS the way to go -- if I can justify the expense. Going to be a while, though.

 

[ksalvagno]

I believe you have to buy a certain type. There is so little cream in goat's milk that there is more to it than just putting it through any old cream separator. I would contact Hoegger's andn see what they say.

 

[Roll farms]

Mine worked fine for goat milk, you just have to use more milk to get enough cream to bother with.
It was a $250 e-bay manual seperator.

There may be some that work 'better' (meaning more efficiently or faster) for goat milk, but you're still seperating the fatty cream from the watery milk...so any seperator should technically 'work'.