Type of milk you drink regularily

[GLC1968]

GLC, how do you process goat's milk properly? I hear pasteurization kills off most of the goodness, but I don't think I'd want to drink it straight out of the animal in case it's contaminated with something, you know?

And I'm glad to know that "goaty" is actually a term. Better than saying "farmy".

Basically, there are two main factors. Cleanliness and speed of cooling. The faster the milk is taken below 40F after milking, the fresher it remains. Cleanliness means keeping the goat, the equipment and even the barn clean. Except for a simple filtering - you are kind of drinking it straight out of the goat!

I believe I did a post about processing milk in my blog back when we first started. It's not that detailed, but it gives you an idea.

http://simplemetamorphosis.blogspot....n-freezer.html

Basically, for us the steps are:
1) clean the udder/teets and our hands
2) milk the goat and then cover the bucket (one errant fly or leaf off a tree could ruin the whole batch)
3) dip the teets (to avoid mastitis)
4) strain the milk (through a milk filter into sterile glass containers)
5) chill it (ice bath combined with freezer)
6) wash and sterilize the equipment for the next milking

And if you want it skimmed - that's a whole long list of additional things to do! It's actually a major pain which is why I taught myself to tolerate whole goats milk in my coffee and on my cereal. Laziness.