Goat milk questions - Straining? Taste of heated milk?

[Hutch]

Do you strain your raw goat milk before drinking and with what?

Our goat milk tastes great and has a great texture when chilled, but in coffee it has an off flavor. I tried it heated by another means and it had an unpleasant smell and taste. Anyone else?

How long do you store raw goat milk in the fridge and still drink it?

If you put frozen blueberries in a blender and blend in goat milk it makes delicious instant ice cream. I add some sugar too. Doesn't store well, ice crystals.

 

[Fullhousefarm]

I use a reuseable coffee filter- from Walmart. It's way faster than the paper filters, but very fine. I usually double strain the milk I sell, but I'm just extra picky. I also hand milk and my 10 year old hand milks, so it's not quite as clean as someone with a machine.

I prefer to drink it by about 4 days. After that it starts tasting goaty to me. If I still have some by day 4 I try to either pasteurize and freeze it for (future) babies, or make cheese. If it's just a little I give it to the dogs who could care less how it tastes.

 

[newbiekat]

I use those "flour towels" some people use them as tea towels... I cut them up into about 8 pieces (the towel is pretty big), and use one a day, rinse it, hang it to dry then when I get a bunch, I throw them all into the washer.

I dunno about the heated taste, I use mine in coffee every day and it tastes just fine. What kind of goats do you have? I've heard different kinds produce different tasting milk, some better than others.

I can store mine in the fridge for about 5 or 6 days before it starts getting a little off tasting. However, for me and my husband, its not "off enough" to warrant us not drinking it

I've also wondered about heating the milk. I enjoy the milk raw, so I'm not sure how it would taste if it were heated.

 

[elbesta]

Mine starts to get a sour taste after 2 days but around my house its all gone by 2 days. I have drank it warm fresh from the goat and it tastes more like milk than when its cold. The colder the milk is the less taste it has. I have a stainless funnel with a very fine screen that I use to filter the milk.

 

[OneFineAcre]

I've noticed an off flavor when I put it in coffee too. I don't know why.

Un-pasturized lasts about 5 days. We don't drink that much so we make cheese about once per week.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

My taste buds must be half dead, lol. We routinely drink milk up to ten days old...sometimes even a little more. Our milk doesn't start tasting "off" to me until it's over 2 weeks old. I use it every day in my coffee and prefer it to any other creamer.

I usually don't have milk that gets that old - but for awhile I was milking three goats. I used a lot of the milk for pigs, but we butchered the pigs and I didn't stop milking all the goats right away. DH and I, the dogs, and chickens couldn't use it all up so I had to dry up two of them.

I usually milk by hand into a SS pail with a fine mesh nylon strainer on top - then I bring it in the house and strain again through a coffee filter into a glass jar...slam it in the separate fridge that's set to 34 degrees and it's perfect! I have Nubians, Kinders and Pygmies. HANDS DOWN - the sweetest, creamiest, best tasting milk on my place is from a pygmy! I lost my best milking pygmy last summer... My grandkids called her milk "milkshake milk". They loved it! I just dried up a Nubian and am milking a Kinder now. Good stuff!

 

[Hutch]

Thanks for the replies. We were milking a brush goat. She was in a two and half acre pasture with a buck. There are at least three possibilities for any off taste.

We sold both of those goats and are looking for dairy goats. With everything going on now it might take a while.

As chance would have it we got a cream separator a few days after we sold the goats so we don't have milk to send through the separator.