We were back in the dairy today!  Well, sort of, we were actually in the training room, but we were doing dairy  =)

First up, we had to decant the lovely fresh raw milk from Stitchelton Dairy from the churns into smaller containers, to make it easier to handle.  We were able to taste the milk too, if we wanted.  I did, & it was lovely  =D

Steph & I weren't actually using the raw milk for our first recipe; we had elected to make a goats milk yogurt using a fairly simple recipe designed for smallholders.  We took 3 litres of goats milk & 8 tablespoons of dried milk powder, then heated them slowly, to kill off any bacteria present.  Then the milk was cooled, & a small portion combined with some live yogurt.  We mixed this back into the bulk of the goats milk & popped the bowl into a low oven, where it will stay overnight  =)

We made 7 different batches of yogurt in total, all using slightly different recipes & techniques, to see the different sets & flavours you can get.  Alex & Amy's yogurt was made using quite an old recipe, & that was ready to come home today, but the rest won't be done till tomorrow.

Next up was a yogurt tasting!  We had 7 different types of yogurt to try; 4 cows milk yogurts, a goats milk yogurt, a sheeps milk yogurt, & a soya yogurt.

The range of flavours & textures was crazy; some were very thick & smooth, others were more like a runny cottage cheese!  Of the cows milk yogurts, my favourite was Yeo Vally Natural yogurt, which is the one we used to make our own yogurts.  The goats milk yogurt was really interesting; it had quite a strong goaty flavour, & was slightly savoury, but not unpleasant  =)

The sheeps milk on the other hand, was really rather unpleasant!  It had such a strange texture, & I don't think any of us really knew how to describe the flavour, but it's not one I'll be rushing to try again!

We were planning on separating cream from raw milk, using two different methods; one with a separating machine, the other by hand.  The hand skimming milk needed time to rest, so we measured out 20 litres of the raw milk & left it to sit in a container for most of the day.

The skimming machine was really quite fun; we heated up 5 litres of milk at a time, then poured it slowly into the machine., which uses centrifugal force to separate out the cream from the milk.

Above you can see the raw milk being poured in to the top, then the skimmed milk filters out the spout on the right, while the cream comes out the spout on the left.  Once all 20 litres of milk had been skimmed, we measured out the cream; we were left with just over 2 litres of cream, & rather a lot of skimmed milk!

Skimming by hand was a much slower process; the cream had settled on top of the milk, but in a very thin layer.

As we skimmed the cream from the top, we disturbed the rest, causing the cream to mix through the milk again, so we had to leave it to settle again a number of times.  Even then, we were only able to get 600ml of cream from 20 litres of milk!  Clearly, a skimming machine is the way forward if anyone plans on doing this on a regular basis!

We also had a butter tasting, which wasn't quite as unappealing as it sounds  =)

The butter tasting was done blind, so we were faced with 8 blocks of butter, & had to try to identify which brand they were.

Some, like lard & cookeen, were easy to spot without needing to taste, but the others proved a little trickier.  Eventually though, we had all decided which butter we thought went with which brand, & I'm pleased to say I got them all right!  =D

After that, we had the chance to make butter of our own.  Working in pairs we whipped 800ml of double cream in a mixer, till the butter & buttermilk had separated.  Steph & I got 457g of butter, which we split between the two of us.  I split mine down again, & added 1% salt to one half, leaving the other unsalted.

We had rather a productive day really, & I've come away with quite a haul of goodies  =D

I've got plenty of lovely raw milk for the next few days (honestly, if I could, I would have raw milk ALL THE TIME!  It's full of so much flavour, it really is just scrummy!), some tasty cream, plenty of buttermilk, as well as salted & unsalted butter!  Tomorrow I should hopefully be coming home with plenty of yogurt as well  =D

So now I just need to find a use for all this lovely dairy goodness... I think the cream might just have to go in some salted caramels...  =D

(On a sadder note, my temperature probe still hasn't turned up... )