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Milk, Butter & Cheese Without a Fridge

How to milk cleanly, keep milk safe and cool with no power, and turn it into butter, buttermilk, ghee, yogurt, kefir and cheese that keep for weeks or months, from goats, cows or sheep. The animal itself (breeds, feed, kidding, udder health) is in the Goats guide. The books are in Animals\Dairy-Cheese, with the old USDA butter and cheese bulletins in Homestead-Skills\Food-Crafts-Tools, milk cooling in Food-Storage\Cooling-Without-Power, milk-borne disease in Animals\Veterinary, and the family cow in Animals\Cattle-Horses-Pigs. Where this guide works out a number it says (arithmetic); check it with the Unit Converter or the Practical Math guide.

The short version

Goat, cow or sheep milk

Goat Cow Sheep
Butterfat 3.5–4.2% 3.6% (Holstein) to 5.2% (Jersey) about 7.9%
Cream Rises very slowly, and only partly Rises well in 24–36 hours (no book data)
Butter Good but pure white, like lard Yellowest on spring pasture Rich (rule of thumb)
Daily milk About 1½ quarts averaged over a 10-month lactation 10–20 quarts for a family cow (no book data)

Sources: fat, FB 920, p. 6, Practical Action, p. 3; goat cream and butter, FB 920, p. 7; cow cream, ILCA, p. 38; butter color, FB 876, p. 13; a "fair milker" goat gives 1,000 lb in 10 months (FB 920, p. 5; arithmetic); cow, Keeping One Cow, p. 19.

Goat cheese is better with a quarter to a third cow milk mixed in (FB 920, p. 7). Two does bred a few months apart keep milk coming all year (rule of thumb); see the Goats guide.

Clean milking

  1. Clean, dry bedding. A goat lying on wet straw lets bacteria in through the teat opening. Clip the udder hair so dirt doesn't fall in (Lincoln, pp. 1–2).
  2. No dust at milking time. Feed, brush and sweep after milking, or long enough before for the dust to settle; sprinkle the floor (Book of Cheese, p. 48).
  3. Wipe the udder and flank with a damp cloth, a separate cloth for each animal, so mastitis germs don't travel (Raising Healthy Cattle, p. 82; Book of Cheese, p. 47). Never wash teats in the milk pail (Keeping One Cow, p. 17).
  4. Strip the first squirts into a strip cup and look for clots every milking. Clots mean mastitis: discard that milk and milk her last (Lincoln, p. 2).
  5. Dip the teats in iodine, wipe them dry, and milk with dry hands, never wet with milk (Book of Cheese, p. 48). Don't wring the teats; dip again after.
  6. Milk into a small-top pail; less dirt falls in than into an open one (Book of Cheese, p. 49; pails).
  7. Strain at once through several layers of cheesecloth, or sterilized cotton between two cloths (FB 920, p. 29), then cool it. Lincoln's target is 38 °F within an hour; kept that cold, raw milk stays fresh 12–14 days (Lincoln, p. 2).
  8. Wash the gear right away: rinse in cold water, scrub in hot water with washing soda (soap leaves a film), then boil 5 minutes or scald, and let it dry by itself; no dish towel (USDA FB 876, p. 6). With no sanitizer, scald with water at 176 °F or hotter; three small rinses beat one big one (ILCA, p. 74).

Milk to keep out of the house: the first 4–5 days after kidding (colostrum, for the kid) (FB 920, p. 28); clotted or bloody milk; and milk from an animal on antibiotics until the label's withdrawal time is over (see the Goats guide).

Raw milk dangers: brucellosis, TB and Listeria

Disease How it reaches people Signs in people Signs in the herd
Brucellosis ("undulant fever") Raw milk and soft raw-milk cheese; birth fluids Fever that goes away and comes back, sweats, weakness; can cripple for life (Zoonoses, p. 30) Abortions. Goats are the classic carrier (p. 29); a cow sheds it in milk up to 2 years (Cattle, p. 117)
Bovine TB (M. bovis) Raw milk; children were the main victims (Zoonoses, p. 23) Swollen, draining neck glands; belly, bone and spine TB Slow weight loss, long cough, hard lumps in the udder (Cattle, p. 113)
Listeria Raw milk, soft cheese Worst for pregnant women (miscarriage), newborns, the old and the sick (Zoonoses, p. 91) Circling, drooping ear and face in goats and cattle (p. 92)

After fallout

5–10% of the radioactive iodine a cow eats goes into her milk; it halves every 8 days. Keep milking animals in the barn on hay stored before the fallout. Don't dump contaminated milk: make it into butter or cheese and store it 1–2 months to let the iodine decay. Save clean or canned milk for babies (USDA AH 234, p. 22). See the Nuclear Fallout guide.

Pasteurizing, with or without a thermometer

With a thermometer (UMN, p. 1):

  1. Use a double boiler, or a pot set in a pan of water; milk heated straight over the fire scorches.
  2. Heat to 145 °F and hold 30 minutes, stirring, or to 161 °F for 15 seconds. If it drops below 145 °F, start the 30 minutes again (rule of thumb). UMN's own home method has a margin: stir until an accurate thermometer reads 165 °F, then cool at once. Cream needs 150 °F for 30 minutes or 166 °F for 15 seconds.
  3. Cool it at once in cold running water. Kept refrigerator-cold it lasts 7–10 days; ILCA gives pasteurized milk only 2–3 days, after which it rots instead of souring (ILCA, p. 34).

With no thermometer:

Cooling milk with no power

Why hurry: milk leaves the udder a little above 90 °F. Ordinary milk soured in 12 hours at 100 °F and clean milk in 36; at 40 °F they kept about 7 and 16 days (FB 976, p. 5; chart). In shade at 61 °F milk is still 82 °F after 3 hours; in running water it reaches 61 °F in 1 hour (ILCA, p. 33). Keep it below 50 °F (FB 976, p. 16).

Springhouse or spring tank (FB 976, pp. 9–15):

  1. Pipe the spring several feet underground to a covered tank in the shade; surface-run spring water has warmed 20 °F on the way. Ours runs about 52–55 °F (Root Cellar guide, "Cooling without power").
  2. Water in at the bottom, out near the top, as high on the can as the milk inside; cans on cleats (FB 876, pp. 7–8; tank).
  3. Cover and insulate it (6 in of dry sawdust, FB 876, p. 8): a covered, insulated tank in a shed lost 7.6 lb of ice in a test; an open metal tank in the sun, 168 lb (FB 976, p. 12).
  4. No running water or ice: 6–10 gallons of water per gallon of milk, changed often (FB 976, p. 14). Stir the milk. Even ice water needs volume: a can of 85 °F milk in 3 times its volume of 37 °F water only gets to about 50 °F (p. 6).

Cross-section of two insulated concrete cooling tanks with lids: a 10-gallon can of 85 °F milk standing in 30 gallons of 37 °F ice water, and afterward milk and water both at about 50 °F; an overflow pipe and a drain Even three times the milk's volume of ice water only brings 85 °F milk down to about 50 °F: use plenty of water, and cover and insulate the tank (FB 976, p. 7).

A creek: a lidded can tied in a cold stream works (Raising Healthy Cattle, p. 13). Our creeks and the Illinois River run warm by midsummer, so measure first, use a shaded side-channel or deep pool, and weight and lash the lid against raccoons and bears (rule of thumb).

Evaporative cooler ("iceless refrigerator") for butter, cheese and cooled milk (USDA 1917, p. 3): a 42 × 16 × 14-inch screened frame, covered in canton flannel or burlap, with cloth wicks from a pan of water on top; stand it in shade and a breeze. In warm dry air it gets down to about 50 °F; in damp weather it barely works. Our dry summer afternoons suit it (rule of thumb). Brick and charcoal versions are in the Root Cellar guide.

An iceless refrigerator: a screened wooden cabinet with shelves, covered in wet cloth, with cloth wicks hanging from a pan of water on top and the cover hanging into a pan below, standing in the shade in a breeze Water wicks from the top pan into the cloth cover, and the breeze dries it and cools the inside (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Hold the cold: chill milk first, then shut it in a hay-box: it "may make many hours difference"; with a little cracked ice a quart holds 24 hours in hot weather (USDA FB 771, p. 17). Ice and cold-water numbers: the Storing Energy guide, "Cold: storing winter for summer". Summer plan (rule of thumb): milk at dawn and dusk, cool at once, drink the morning's milk that day, and turn the rest into yogurt, cheese, butter or ghee before the afternoon heat.

Separating cream by hand

Method How Fat left in the skim milk
Shallow pan Fresh milk in a pan 16–24 in across and 4 in deep, in a cool place; skim with a ladle after 36 hours 0.5–0.6%, or more: up to a third of the butterfat lost
Deep-setting Fresh milk in a tall narrow "shotgun" can (about 8½ × 20 in) in ice water 12 hours or cold water 24 hours; draw the skim milk off a bottom tap 0.2–0.5%
Hand-cranked separator Milk at 90 °F or warmer, crank at the stated speed, flush with skim milk at the end a trace

Sources: ILCA, p. 38 (pan and can); FB 876, pp. 4–6; can size p. 21.

Butter and buttermilk

Butter from cream (FB 876, pp. 8–15, 23–24):

  1. Ripen: warm the saved cream to 65–75 °F and hold it until it thickens, looks glossy and is mildly sour, about 12 hours. Overripe (too sour) cream makes poor butter.
  2. Cool it to churning heat and hold 2 hours: 52–60 °F in summer, 58–66 °F in winter, set so the butter comes in 30–40 minutes (p. 10). Warm or cool it by standing the can in water (p. 7); never pour hot water or ice into cream.
  3. Churn in a scalded, cold-rinsed churn filled only a third full (p. 12). No churn: a jar or a closed can, shaken, rolled on a mat or swung from a tripod (ILCA, p. 60; small churns). Let the gas out a few times early on.
  4. Stop when the grains are the size of wheat and drain the buttermilk through a strainer (p. 13). Churning on into a lump traps buttermilk.
  5. Wash, don't work, the buttermilk out: twice, with clean water at the buttermilk's temperature, twice its volume in all; three times in hot weather (pp. 14–15; ILCA, p. 46). Use drinking-quality water.
  6. Salt and work: about ½ oz salt per pound (3%) for keeping butter; FB 876 uses ¾ oz. Press and fold with a wooden paddle, never your warm hands (Keeping One Cow, p. 18), just until the salt is even and the butter breaks "like broken steel" (p. 16; working it).

Four jars of cream being churned: a third full at the start; thick and grainy like cornmeal mush; grains the size of wheat in thin buttermilk (stop here); one big lump of butter (too far) Stop when the grains are the size of wheat, before they gather into a lump (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Butter from soured whole milk (goat milk, or no separator) (ILCA, pp. 60–62): collect milk over 2–3 days until it is pleasantly sour; fresh milk churns slowly and loses fat. Churn at 63–66 °F (17–19 °C), the jar a third to half full. Warmer than 68 °F churns fast but loses fat: at 79 °F as little as 60% comes out as butter. Colder can take 5 hours (products chart).

Keeping butter without a fridge:

Cultured buttermilk: skim milk heated to 203 °F, cooled to 68–77 °F, seeded with 1–2% starter, 16–20 hours (Practical Action, p. 1).

📚 Go deeper: USDA FB 876 Making Butter on the Farm — every step and every fault; ILCA Rural Dairy Technology — churning, overrun and keeping butter.

Ghee and clarified butter for storage

Ghee is butterfat with the water and milk solids cooked out, so germs have nothing to grow in. It keeps more than 12 months at room temperature (Practical Action, p. 4).

  1. Melt butter (or, the traditional way, boil cream) in a heavy pot and boil gently and steadily, skimming the scum. Don't scorch it (ILCA, p. 49).
  2. It is done when the water stops spitting and the milk solids on the bottom turn golden brown; color is the only test (Practical Action, p. 4).
  3. Let it settle; pour off through boiled cheesecloth until it runs clear.
  4. Store airtight, dark and cool, in glazed crocks or glass, not iron or copper, which speed rancidity. Fill jars full; a clean, dry spoon every time (rule of thumb).

Clarified butter with less fuel: melt butter in water at about 176 °F, let the fat set on top as in a deep-setting can, drain the water off, then heat the fat just long enough to drive off the last moisture. It kept well through a 5-month test (ILCA, p. 49).

A pound of butter (80% fat) gives about ¾ lb of ghee (ILCA, p. 45; arithmetic). In fire season do the long boil on the stove indoors or before dawn, never over an open fire outside (rule of thumb).

Cultured milk, yogurt and kefir

Soured milk keeps where fresh milk won't: the acid stops most germs, though not mold (ILCA, p. 34).

Yogurt (Practical Action, pp. 1–4):

  1. Heat milk to 176–185 °F and hold 15–20 minutes, stirring. Cool fast to 104–113 °F, standing the pot in cold water.
  2. Stir in 20–50 g of live yogurt per liter (about 1½–3 tablespoons per quart (arithmetic)).
  3. Keep it at 104–113 °F for 4–6 hours: a thermos, an insulated box (p. 4), a hay-box, or a cooler with jars of hot water (rule of thumb). Then cool it.
  4. It keeps up to 10 days cold (p. 1); in a springhouse plan on less (rule of thumb).

Clabber and soured milk: milk soured naturally in a warm room for 1–2 days keeps 3–8 days (p. 1). The ILCA way keeps longer: a vessel smoked hot with burning embers (they used olive and acacia; a clean hardwood such as oak (rule of thumb)), the milk fermented slowly at 61–64 °F for 2–4 days, keeps 15–20 days; warmer, it wheys off and gets gassy (ILCA, p. 59). Pouring off the whey and topping up with fresh milk for up to a week concentrates it and keeps it longer still (p. 60). Pasteurized milk must be seeded; it won't sour cleanly alone (p. 34).

Kefir needs no warm box (ILCA, p. 59): heat milk to 185 °F for 30 minutes, cool it, add kefir grains (lumps in which the bacteria and yeasts live), and leave about 12 hours at 72 °F. Lift the grains out with a clean spoon into the next jar of milk. They multiply; give spares away or feed them to hens (rule of thumb).

Keeping cultures alive for years:

Soft cheeses: paneer, queso fresco, chèvre, cottage cheese

Soft cheeses are quick and need little gear, but they keep only days: about 3 days cold, 5 in brine (Practical Action, p. 1). Make them from pasteurized milk.

Paneer or queso blanco (lemon or vinegar cheese, no rennet) (ILCA, pp. 50–52; Practical Action, p. 2):

  1. Heat milk to 180 °F, or to a simmer for 5 minutes. This pasteurizes it too.
  2. Stir in lemon or lime juice: Practical Action uses 1–1.5% of the milk's weight, ILCA about 3 mL per 100 mL diluted with equal water (2 tablespoons per quart (arithmetic)). Add it in three parts, stopping when the curds clump and the whey runs clear and yellow-green. Vinegar works the same way (rule of thumb).
  3. Settle 15 minutes; drain in a cloth, stirring so it doesn't mat.
  4. Salt (3.5–5% of the curd) and press overnight (step chart). A liter makes about 250 g of moist paneer; a firm pressed queso blanco about 1 lb per gallon.

Queso fresco is the same fresh cheese set with rennet instead of acid: make the one-gallon rennet cheese (hard-cheese section) up to bagging the curd, salt the curd, press it lightly a few hours, and eat it within a few days (rule of thumb).

Chèvre-style goat cheese (soft, spreadable, a little rennet): FB 920 calls French goat cheese "Chevret" (p. 7); this is the USDA rennet cottage-cheese method (FB 1451, pp. 9–11):

  1. Pasteurize the milk, cool it to 75 °F, and stir in starter: about ½ cup per gallon (a pint per 3½ gallons).
  2. Add rennet: about 3 drops of liquid rennet per gallon, first stirred into a half-cup of cold water; or one junket tablet dissolved in a pint of cold water, using a third of it for 3½ gallons.
  3. Cover and leave at 75 °F 12–15 hours (overnight), until clear whey lies on the curd. Don't cut or heat it.
  4. Ladle into fine cotton cloth; drain 20–30 minutes, then tie it up and hang it, or press lightly under about 25 lb until it is like thick cream cheese (boards and weight).
  5. Salt about 1 teaspoon per pound; herbs if you like.

Cottage cheese with no bought culture (FB 1451, pp. 6–7): let skim milk clabber at about 75 °F (about 30 hours) until clean and pleasantly sour; cut it in 2-inch pieces; set the pan in hot water to bring it to 100 °F and hold 30 minutes, stirring gently (hotter makes it tough); drain in a cloth bag, rinse cold, salt. A gallon makes about 1½ lb. Keep it in glass or earthenware and eat it soon: 36 hours at room temperature puts it off flavor (p. 10).

Rennet from a kid or calf stomach, and from plants

Rennet is an enzyme from the true (fourth) stomach, the abomasum, of a suckling calf. After weaning, the calf makes pepsin instead (ILCA, pp. 49–50), so stomachs that have digested anything but milk make weak rennet. Cheesemakers hold that kid or lamb rennet suits goat or sheep milk (Book of Cheese, p. 55).

Making rennet (Book of Cheese, pp. 55–56):

  1. Take the fourth stomach of a kid, lamb or calf that has had nothing but milk, butchered soon after a full feed. Empty it, clean it, blow it up and dry it in airy shade. Dried "rennets" keep until needed.
  2. Cut it open and soak it in 3–5% salt water (about 4–7 oz salt per gallon (arithmetic)), stirring and pounding it, 5–7 days. Wring it out and soak it again in fresh brine, 4–6 weeks in all.
  3. Filter through straw, charcoal and sand (or several cloths), add more salt, and keep it cool and dark in a stone jug or brown glass. Light destroys it, and heat kills it.
  4. Good rennet is clear, with a clean salty taste. Cloudy, muddy or bad-smelling rennet taints cheese: throw it out.
  5. Quick way: a small piece of dried stomach left in a little water overnight curdles milk (Henley's, p. 176).

Test every batch: homemade rennet varies in strength and spoils (p. 55). It works slowly below 70 °F and best at 84–94 °F; dilute it in about 40 times its volume of cold water before stirring it in (pp. 95–96). Warm a quart of milk to 86 °F, stir in a measured half-teaspoon of diluted rennet, and time it: aim for a curd that splits cleanly in 25–40 minutes, then scale up (rule of thumb). Bought liquid rennet runs about 2 teaspoons per 100 lb of milk (FB 1191, p. 6).

Plant rennets (Practical Action, p. 1): papaya sap, fig bark, and the stems or leaves of two tropical plants also curdle milk. Fig trees grow in valley yards; a few drops of the milky sap from a green fig stem per quart of warm milk is the old way. The sap burns skin, so wear gloves (rule of thumb). Thistle flowers (cardoon) and nettle are traditional too (rule of thumb).

Hard cheese step by step, with a home-made press

The USDA's simple farm Cheddar ("granular" process) from whole milk: 5–6 hours, then minutes a day (FB 1191, pp. 4–17). Cool nights make the best cheese; hot weather breeds gas germs (p. 4). Use milk under 12 hours old, kept at 60 °F or below (p. 5). Pasteurize it if you can, then add ¼–½ cup of clean buttermilk or clabber per gallon as starter (rule of thumb).

For 4 gallons (about 34 lb) of milk, making about 3½ lb of cheese (arithmetic from p. 5):

  1. Warm the milk to 86 °F in a big pot set in a tub of warm water; keep it there until the curd is cut.
  2. Rennet: about ⅔ teaspoon of liquid rennet (FB 1191 uses ⅓ oz, 2 teaspoons, per 100 lb (arithmetic)), stirred into a cup of cool water, then stirred through the milk 3 minutes (p. 6). Cover; don't let it move for 30–35 minutes.
  3. Test the set: slide a finger in at a slant, lift, and split the curd with your thumb. When it splits cleanly with nothing left on the finger, cut it (p. 7; trying the curd).
  4. Cut into ⅜-inch cubes with a long knife: lengthwise, crosswise, then give the curd a quarter turn and cut lengthwise again. Cut, don't crush (p. 8; curd knives).
  5. Stir gently 15–20 minutes, then heat slowly, about 2 °F every 5 minutes, to 100 °F, still stirring.
  6. Hold at 100 °F until firm and acid: a squeezed handful falls apart when you open your hand (firmness), and a pinch of curd pressed on a clean hot iron draws out fine threads ¼–½ inch long (pp. 9–10; hot-iron test).
  7. Drain: dip off the whey; spread the curd on a cloth over a slatted rack, keep it covered and near 100 °F, and stir it every 5–10 minutes so the pieces stay hickory-nut size (pp. 10–11; draining box).
  8. Salt when the hot-iron threads reach ¾–1 inch: about 3 oz salt per 10 lb of curd. Let it dissolve and the curd cool to 85 °F (p. 13).
  9. Press: into a cloth-lined hoop; light weight 30 minutes, more for an hour; take it out, dip it in warm water, smooth the cloth ("dressing"), and press at full weight 24 hours (p. 14).
  10. Cure at 50–60 °F, turned daily for 2 weeks, then twice a week; coat it at 2 weeks; eat it from 6 weeks (mild), or keep it many months for sharp (pp. 15–16).

Testing the curd with a finger for a clean split; cutting it lengthwise, then crosswise, seen from above; giving it a quarter turn and cutting lengthwise again; ending in cubes three-eighths of an inch on a side Steps 3 and 4: test the set with a finger, then cut the curd into ⅜-inch cubes (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Smaller batch (1 gallon, goat or cow) (FB 920, p. 8): a junket tablet dissolved in a little cold water into a gallon of milk at 88 °F; cut after 30 minutes into 1-inch cubes; warm the pot in 100 °F water so the curd reaches 98 °F in an hour; bag it 2–3 hours; press between two plates in a can under a weight 24 hours; rub with salt two days running, then daily for a week. Ready at 10 days.

A home-made cheese press

A home-made lever cheese press: a long board hinged to the wall, the cheese hoop on a stand under it near the wall, and a pail of stones hanging from the far end The hoop stands about 3 ft from the wall; sliding the pail of stones outward along the pole presses harder (FB 1191, p. 15).

Feta and halloumi: cheese that keeps in brine

Feta needs no press and keeps for months under brine with the air kept out. Cow, sheep or goat milk all work (ILCA, pp. 52–56; steps):

  1. Warm the milk to 90 °F and let it stand 1 hour (with a little starter if it was pasteurized (rule of thumb)).
  2. Rennet at 25 mL per 100 liters, about ¾ teaspoon for 4 gallons (arithmetic). Firm in 40–50 minutes.
  3. Cut into 1-inch cubes; let the whey separate 15 minutes, stirring now and then; settle; dip off the whey.
  4. Ladle curd into cloth-lined molds with lids; turn them every half hour for the first few hours; drain overnight.
  5. Cut into blocks, sprinkle with salt, and put them in 15% brine (about 1¼–1½ lb salt per gallon of boiled water (arithmetic)). The cheese ends near 6–8% salt.
  6. Keep the air out (a full crock with a weighted plate, or a full sealed jar): mold grows where air reaches the brine. Eat after a few days or keep it for months; it softens and crumbles as it ripens. Yield about 1 lb per gallon (1 kg from 9 kg of milk) (arithmetic).

Halloumi, cooked in its own whey and kept in whey brine (ILCA, pp. 52–53; steps): set whole milk with rennet at 90–95 °F; cut the curd; warm it to 104 °F stirring 20 minutes; drain and press 2 hours. Meanwhile heat the whey to 176–194 °F: the whey cheese that rises is skimmed off. Cut the pressed curd into 4 × 4 × 1¼-inch slabs and simmer them in the hot whey until they float and turn soft and stretchy; fold them, rub with dry salt and dried mint, cool, and store in cool, boiled whey brine (15% salt). Ripen about 30 days; it keeps several months below 54 °F.

Salting, waxing and aging without a fridge

Salt is the main preservative: it pulls out water and slows the germs that remain (Practical Action, p. 1): in the curd for hard cheese, brine for fresh.

Where to age it:

Care: turn every cheese daily so it dries evenly and doesn't stick or mold to the shelf; if the cloth loosens and the rind cracks, rub it with butter. Cracks let in flies and mold (Book of Cheese, p. 284). Wipe mold off with a dry cloth; if it molds badly, scrub it with strong brine and move it somewhere drier (FB 1191, p. 15). Cover cellar windows with cheesecloth: the cheese-skipper fly gets through window screen (same page; Cheese fly).

Coating cuts drying and mold. Coat once the rind is dry, 4–6 days to 2 weeks after pressing (Book of Cheese, p. 286):

Cut cheese: wrap it in a cloth wrung almost dry, then paper, and keep it cool; don't shut it fully airtight, which makes it mold faster (Book of Cheese, p. 396).

📚 Go deeper: USDA FB 1191 — farm Cheddar with home-made gear; The Book of Cheese, pp. 281–293 — curing rooms and defects (old book: raw-milk methods); ILCA — queso blanco, halloumi, feta, yields.

Whey and buttermilk: using everything

A hard cheese leaves 8–9 lb of whey for every pound of cheese (arithmetic). Whey can be a drink, become whey cheese, or feed animals (Practical Action, p. 2).

The dairy year in the valley

Months Milk What to make (rule of thumb)
Jan–Feb Little; kids due from February Eat stored cheese, ghee and butter. Scald and mend gear. Make rennet from milk-fed bucklings or bull calves butchered young
Mar–May Spring flush; cool nights; springs and cellar cold Hard cheese for winter (cool nights suit it, FB 1191, p. 4); butter for storing; start new cultures
Jun–Sep Steady; 90–100 °F afternoons; fire season Milk at dawn and dusk; spring tank and evaporative cooler; yogurt, kefir, feta, halloumi and ghee the same day. Ghee on the stove indoors, no outdoor fires
Oct–Dec Tapering; rains; cellar cooling Cheeses curing in the cellar; salt butter down; dry off does and breed them (see the Goats guide)

Cooking with milk, whey and cheese

Milk, eggs and a little grain make the cheapest filling food a household has. More recipes, and what to cook each on, are in Food from Scratch ("Fish, eggs, milk and cheese", "Fruit, nuts and sweet dishes", "Making plain food good").

📚 Go deeper: Fannie Farmer 1896, p. 391 — custards and the rule about low heat; USDA FB 1451 Cottage Cheese, p. 12 — dozens of ways to use fresh curd; USDA FB 1236, p. 12 — cornmeal cooked in milk, buttermilk and cheese.

How much milk makes how much

Product Milk or cream in Comes out Source
Butter 1 gal of 30% cream about 3 lb FB 876, p. 3
Butter whole milk at 4% fat, all fat recovered 1 lb from about 9 qt (19.4 L per kg) ILCA, p. 48 (arithmetic)
Butter, old rule 1 qt a day 1 lb a week (7 qt per lb): true for Jersey-rich milk Keeping One Cow, p. 18
Ghee 1 lb butter about ¾ lb (arithmetic)
Farm Cheddar 100 lb (11⅝ gal) of 4% milk about 10½ lb: ~1 lb per 1⅛ gal FB 1191, p. 5
Any rennet cheese, estimate 100 lb milk (2.3 × fat %) + 1.4 lb ILCA, p. 56
Feta, halloumi 9 kg (about 2⅓ gal) 1 kg (2.2 lb) ILCA, pp. 52, 56
Queso blanco 8 kg 1 kg ILCA, p. 52
Paneer (moist) 1 liter 250 g Practical Action, p. 2
Cottage cheese 1 gal skim milk about 1½ lb FB 1451, p. 6

Goat milk at 3.5% fat gives a little less butter and cheese than these 4% figures; sheep milk much more (rule of thumb). Hand skimming leaves up to a third of the fat in the skim milk (FB 876, p. 5), so by hand expect 1 lb of butter from 3 gallons or more (arithmetic).

For a family (arithmetic, rule of thumb):

What goes wrong: off flavors, spoilage, mold

Problem Likely cause and fix
Milk sours in hours Warm, or dirty pails. Cool below 50 °F within an hour; scald everything (FB 976, p. 5)
Milk tastes "goaty" or weedy Buck kept near the does; wild garlic or strong weeds eaten near milking time; slow cooling; late lactation (FB 920, pp. 25, 29)
Ropy, slimy milk or cream Germs from unscalded gear. Scald everything; pasteurize and use a good starter (FB 876, p. 18)
Butter won't come Too cold; cream too thin, too rich or too sweet; churn too full; a late-lactation animal; hard-fat feeds. Sour the milk, warm it to the churning heat, fill ⅓ (FB 876, pp. 18–19; ILCA, p. 60). If you must add water, never over 77 °F (ILCA, p. 46)
Butter soft, white, greasy or "leaky" Churned too warm or too fast; overworked (FB 876, pp. 11–12, 15)
Butter streaked or mottled Salt uneven: work it a little more (p. 16)
Butter goes rancid or cheesy Buttermilk left in, warmth, air or light (FB 876, p. 11; Practical Action, p. 5). Wash well, salt to 3%, or make ghee
Yogurt thin or didn't set Too cool, or milk too hot when the starter went in (Practical Action, p. 4)
Clabber or yogurt gassy, yeasty, wheying off Too warm; contaminated starter. Replace the starter (ILCA, p. 59; Practical Action, p. 7)
Curd won't set Rennet weak or old, or milk below 70 °F (Book of Cheese, pp. 95–96)
Cheese sour, dry, mealy Too much acid or starter, whey left in too long (FB 1191, p. 9; Book of Cheese, p. 290)
Cheese hard and "corky" Curd firmed too long, cooked too hot, too much salt, cured too warm and dry (Book of Cheese, p. 292)
Cheese puffs up, full of pinholes Gas germs from dirty milk or gear, or hot weather. Clean up, use more starter, cure it cooler (Book of Cheese, pp. 292–293; ILCA, p. 57)
Fruity, strawberry taste Milk and whey carried in the same cans; dirty whey tubs (Book of Cheese, p. 290)
Mold Hard cheese: wipe it, scrub with strong brine, move it somewhere drier (FB 1191, p. 15); cut an inch past mold that went in. Soft cheese, yogurt or butter moldy all through: throw it out (rule of thumb)
Jumping maggots ("skippers") Cheese skipper fly: cheesecloth on windows, no cracks in rinds (FB 1191, p. 15)
Feta soft, slimy or moldy Air in the crock, or weak brine (ILCA, p. 56)
Soft cheese smells rotten, or a sealed jar bulges Discard it unopened. Cheese poisoning, botulism included, has killed people (Book of Cheese, p. 394)

Don't can milk, butter or soft cheese in a water bath: milk is a low-acid food that needs a pressure canner (see the Preserving Food guide), and no tested home method exists for canning butter (rule of thumb). Keep milk fat as ghee instead.

⚠️ Old advice in the library to ignore

Book says Do this instead
Pasteurize at 140 °F (60 °C) for 30 minutes (Zoonoses, p. 31) Too low. 145 °F for 30 minutes, 161 °F for 15 seconds, or bring to a boil
Add hydrogen peroxide to milk to keep it, "far preferable to milk sterilized by heat" (Henley's, p. 477) The same page admits it doesn't kill TB. Cool and pasteurize
Soft cheese from raw milk (Book of Cheese, p. 167; FB 920, p. 8) It carries Listeria and brucellosis. Pasteurize milk for soft cheese
Dip cheese in paraffin heated to 240 °F (FB 1191, p. 15) or 220 °F (Book of Cheese, p. 287) Fire and burn hazard. Melt wax in a can set in water, never unattended
Wrap cheese in tin foil that is 2½–8% lead (Henley's, p. 476) Wax, cloth and fat, or brine
Cheese hoop of galvanized sheet metal (FB 1191, p. 13) Acid curd and whey eat zinc. Wood, food-grade plastic or stainless (rule of thumb)
Butter coloring, 20–35 drops a gallon, and old dairy "preservatives" (FB 876, p. 13) Not needed. Salt to 3%, or make ghee
Send whey home for the pigs in the milk cans (Book of Cheese, p. 49) Spreads disease. Boil whey for pigs; keep milk cans for milk

📚 Go deeper: UMN — today's home pasteurizing standard; Zoonoses — brucellosis, TB and Listeria from animals.

Pictures & diagrams

Look before you try it. 🖼️ = drawings in the books on this drive; 📷 = photos in the offline Wikipedia.

Clean milk and cooling

Cream, butter and ghee

Cultures and soft cheese

Hard and brined cheese

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