NOTHING BUTTER TO DO WITH MY TIME!

Yes, yes, yes!!!! I did it finally!  I got out that cream separator that i got for christmas way back in 2009 and put it to work!  Now my hesitancy, and I do this a lot, is that i keep thinking that its gonna be a pain the ass to do and that i don't have time for such shenanigans, so i put things off.  Now let me explain why i wanted a cream separator: because i wanted to make cream cheese, and butter and other cheeses that require cream, and ice cream. Goats milk is naturally homogenized and you have to use a cream separator because it doesn't separate like cows milk does. Now cream separators cost like upwards of $400- $500 and that's a lot of dough!  So i searched and searched on Ebay and finally found one for only $250, brand new but it was coming from Prague.  Well, it arrived for Christmas and with it came the directions: in Czech!  So Kristi, my step daughter was here at the time and because she is a scientist and very intelligent woman - quite like myself (well not the scientist part), we deduced that we could figure out how to make it work!  Well, a few gallons of spilled milk later, we did - all centrifugal force.

But what i remember was it was a pain in the ass and so when the goats started milking again, i figured it was too much work and that when we used 3 gallons of milk and only got like a cup of cream - well it wasn't worth my time.  But the other day i was reading in my recipe book, "Goats Produce Too!",  that in order to separate the cream, the milk needs to be 90 degrees for efficient separation.  Well, maybe that was our problem!  So i got out the cream separator, 6 half gallons of milk, and went at it!

That's why the towel is there- spillage! Looked like a remake of above.

Well i forgot that the machine had to be warmed up as well in order for this process to work, so as i poured the milk in out it came through the hole in the side that is there for some reason, can't remember. This is when one is grateful for their dogs, they came and lapped up the spilled milk. : )

 But once the machine warmed up from the warmed up milk, i remembered!  So with udder delight i heated the milk one half gallon at a time and poured it into the separator and all this beautiful cream came out - very quickly and efficiently!  Couldn't believe how much cream i got!

1/2 gallon of cream from about 2 /12 gallons of milk!  Wow!

Now I have 4 1/2 gallons of perfectly skim milk!

Look at all that beautiful cream!

So i got all excited and decided to make butter! YAY!

So i got out a jug, poured about 1 1/2 cups of 50 degree milk in there and started to shake.

About a half hour later, i had butter!

Now it doesn't look like it yet, but it is!

I rinsed the butter in water....

added a little sea salt and pressed out the remaining water.

and Wa-lah!  Butter! Yes, that is butter: goats are more efficient at converting carotene (which gives cow's butter that yellow color) in their bodies, that's why it is stark white!

I was so excited i even labeled it with and exclamation point!

Now tell me, who really gets excited about butter?  A desperate goat owner, who farms, and has nothing butter to do with her time in the cold, dank winter's of MN?  oh i mean better...or do i mean butter?