After finally gaining some confidence in milking (and being kinder to my hand), I really needed to get organized with all the milk.

For real, right?

We have a small fridge in the milk room, so if I have things to do after milking, I just pop the milk in the fridge for a few minutes before toting it back to the house.

First things first, a little bit goes in my coffee!

Then, I organize my supplies. (yes, I know I need to paint my kitchen cabinets, don’t judge!)

• A stainless steel funnel with a filter is a must.  You could use a regular funnel and some cheese cloth or coffee filters, but I really love my Kuechenprofi filter.
• 6-1/2″ Milk Filter Disks
• Mason Jars (I find the Dollar Store has the best price, but sometimes Tractor Supply has decent prices)

I also bought these gallon jars from Amazon:

I really like them and they helped to organize the fridge!

I drop the stainless steel filter into a new clean jar and then fold one of the paper filters into a triangle, like this:

Folding it first helps it to fit into the stainless filter.

Our milker is a closed system, so we could probably just use the stainless steel filter, but it doesn’t hurt to double filter it. Occasionally, I’ll find a piece of debris or a hair in the filter.

Pour the beautiful milk!

I put the top on and label it for the day of the month.  This way I always know how old my milk is and I can reuse the tops each month.

Some folks then put their milk in an ice bath or the freezer.  I prefer the freezer because, frankly, I am too lazy to deal with ice and water.  I don’t fill the jar all the way and I put it sideways in the freezer so there is some air circulation.  I leave it there for about an hour.

“Hey Google, set timer for one hour.”

I also keep some milk in the freezer because, even with soap making and cooking, I don’t go through it very quickly. I am not a milk drinker, never have been, and only use it in my coffee! I do like the sweetness of Nigerian milk.  Aspen is part Lamancha, so hers is not as sweet. I can taste very little difference between cow’s milk and her milk, except that hers is just a tad sweeter.

Freezing goat milk is perfectly safe and it actually freezes better than cow’s milk. If you are using it for drinking, you will want to drink it within a month.  After that, it begins to lose the fresh taste. You should take milk from the fridge to freeze instead of leaving farm fresh milk in the freezer.  Milk that goes into the freezer warm, as opposed to fridge temp, tends to cool too slow which leads to more separation and a lower quality.

As in freezing anything in jars, be sure to leave some room for expansion so the jar doesn’t break!  When you want to thaw it, just take it out and put it in the fridge or in a cold bowl of water. Shake it really well or mix it in the blender when it is thawed.

While I am waiting for Google to remind me that time is up, I will sometimes pull out five and six day old jars to skim the cream off the top.  This is absolutely my favorite part of the milk!

You don’t get a lot of cream with goats. As the saying goes, “if you want cream and butter, get a cow.” What you do get though, is lovely for coffee!  Think Cool Whip, but not as sweet and truly natural!

You can make cream from goat milk, but it is more work than cow’s milk. Making butter is also a lot of work!

So, there ya go – my post milking routine.  I’ll post more soon on what we actually do with all this milk!!