Monday, December 13, 2010

Making Butter

One of the great things about owning your own cow (especially a Jersey) is all that lovely cream.  One of the easiest things to make with that cream is butter.  On this occasion, 8 quarts of cream yielded 5 1/2 pounds of butter.

I start with fresh raw milk and let it stand in the fridge for at least 12 hours, this allows the cream to rise. Notice the yellow layer in the bottles below, that's the risen cream. 

Milk that has been sitting 12 hours and ready for skimming



You can buy electric or hand crank butter churns, and shaking the cream in a mason jar will work as well, but I like to use my food processor.

1 quart of cream in the food processor

The butter breaks

Butter

Once the butter breaks, you need to strain it to remove the buttermilk (this can be saved to use in cooking later).  You need to rinse the butter until the water runs clear.  I use a kitchen sieve.

Straining the butter to remove the buttermilk

I like to bounce the butter in the sieve after rinsing, this removes some of the water and buttermilk, and forms a nice butter ball to work with later.

Butter  ready to be worked

Once the butter has been rinsed and most of the buttermilk strained out, you need to "work" the butter to remove even more buttermilk. The more buttermilk you remove, the better and longer your butter will keep.  It is at this point that you add salt to taste.  I work the butter with my hands, kneading it almost as though I would bread.

Worked butter

When I am done "working" the butter, I like to form it into balls. I don't measure it, but the butter balls end up being about 1/4 to 1/3 cup each.

5 1/2 pounds of butter

I like to freeze the butter balls on a plate and then pop them off and store them in a jar in the freezer.  Freezing first keeps them from sticking together in the jar.


Butter balls ready for the freezer

Jelly jars make nice butter containers.

Butter ready for the table

Monday, November 08, 2010

Milking - A Family Affair

We like our milk fresh....really really FRESH.


Dorothy - our very patient family cow
 
Practicing for the 2010 Olympics - Pairs Milking

Udderly fantastic
 
Look at that cream line!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

First Horse Show


Rhiannon was in her first horse show last Saturday, she's been riding since mid-June. She's horse crazy and buying a horse this year was not in the cards - no barn space, so we decided she should take riding lessons at Honey Dew Acres. On Saturday, we waited all day for her to ride for 20 minutes, but she loved it. She was in 2 classes and took ribbons in both. Her smile was worth everything!





Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Chicken Tractor

The meat birds - as we fondly call them are quickly outgrowing their swimming pools in the garage.  So Brad is building them a brand new chicken tractor.  The one he built last year blew away - we won't discuss that in mixed company.  Anyway, this one is much better and should last a few years at least.  Unfortunately before he could even get it finished, some rather large familiar looking chickens took up residence.  They don't appear to be laying eggs and I'm pretty sure we won't be eating them.....


Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Update on the cows

The girls seem to have settled in.  We kept them in their stalls for almost a week after they came home so they could get used to us and we could get used to them.  Lots of brisket and neck scratches (my fingernails may never be clean again) and hand feeding grass seems to have worked. I think they like us.

They are choosing to spend a good portion of their time in their stalls ruminating these days.  It's really hot, and the barn is shady and cool.  I think they are well on their way to being spoiled cows.





Monday, June 28, 2010

The Barn

Several of you have asked for more pictures of the barn.  This is actually a 12x20 Super Calf Hutch supposed to be able to house 8 calves.  We did not build exactly to plan. We used 6x6 skids (6x4 not available)  also we do not have the flip-up ends, we used 6x6 at the ends and ran the studs all the way to the 6x6.  We divided the barn in half so that Dorothy and Fiona could each have their own stall while getting to know each other. We did not fully enclose the barn, but will before winter.  We left Dorothy's end more open than Fiona's. We will finish enclosing it, put in the windows and add a sliding door.  For now though we thought it would be cooler to leave it partially open. It's built on skids so that we can move it.  We will add a floor, a milking area and a small pen for Dorothy's calf - due in early September.

 Here are some pictures of the work in progress.