My raw milk went sour now what?

We had a customer return the milk she bought because it had begun to turn sour. I was thrilled actually! I had wanted to try some things with the soured milk but we always used ours too fast. So this was a bonus for us!

The thing to remember when your raw milk starts to sour is this - DON'T THROW IT OUT!

Unlike pasteurized milk which doesn't sour, it putrifies because it has no healthy bacteria or enzymes; raw milk is still good and actually better for you when it begins to sour. It is chock full of enzymes and beneficial bacteria, the kind you find in buttermilk and yogurt. This benefits the immune system and the digestive system.

If you want more information about the benefits and safety of raw milk read this. http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2009/02/raw-milk-discussing-its-merits-and-safety.html

So now that I had all this sour raw milk what should I do with it?

First I made two batches of yogurt, the first one was fantastic the next one I made two days later and it separated a LOT during fermentation and I wound up with curds and whey. I expect that was because the milk had soured more by then. So I put that in my cheese bag and hung it to drain overnight to make a yogurt cream cheese. Great texture! I'll add salt and herbs to that for a great spread.

Next I took all the cream I could skim and threw it in my food processor and made butter. It takes about 5 minutes to separate it into butter and whey. I then poured the butter whey off and set it aside to ferment into buttermilk. Then I rinsed and worked the butter with a spatula until the water ran clear and added some sea salt. Yay I have butter again!

The buttermilk sat overnight at room temperature and this morning my husband drank it all up! He said it was delicious!

So now I had lots of sour milk left. The only thing left to do was pour it all into my cheese bag and hang it to drain. There was a LOT of whey of course. So I looked up how to make lacto-fermented veggies and I made a batch of that. I used cabbage, carrots, zucchini, cucumber and an apple. The instructions I followed I found here http://www.nourishingdays.com/2009/07/the-benefits-of-fermented-food-lacto-fermented-vegetables/ . Fermented veggies are very high in healthy digestive bacteria, and they are SO easy to make! I see more of these in our future...

This morning I checked the drained soured milk and poured out the cream cheese left in the bag into a bowl. It was sweet and a wonderful texture. We had fresh cream cheese on toast with our breakfast this morning. Yum! I have lots of this so I think I will be making some flavored cream cheeses and dips out of it. It is surprising to me the sweet flavor of the cream cheese made from soured milk. Oh what I've been missing!

Lesson learned for me. NEVER throw out soured raw milk!

Happy and Healthy living to all!
Grow Foods Market