Goats in the Machine

We've been thinking for sometime that we ought to keep goats.  I'm not sure there is an easier, more versatile livestock species.  Meat, sod-busting, general cuteness, are all great attributes, but we primarily want their milk.  Until recently - having only enjoyed their cheeses - I hadn't experienced the pleasure of drinking goat's milk, but thanks to Side Hill Acres who produces it locally and GreenStar Co-op who sells it, that all changed.

Goat's milk doesn't taste all that different from cow's milk, but has just a touch of the tang you find in goat cheeses.  While I did drink a few glasses - and thoroughly enjoyed them - it was the butter and the cheese we made with it that were most enjoyable.  We made both with help from The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley - which is just about the greatest resource in the world if you have even a passing interest in making cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, creme fraiche, or anything dairy for that matter.  Another great book for dairy and all things fermented is Wild Fermentation, by Sandor Ellix Katz (we've used it more for making booze and sauerkraut, but the yogurt and kefir recipes are awesome too).

The butter - pictured above - could not have been easier.  Tamara had made butter at summer camp, but I somehow had managed to go twenty-six years without shaking cream until it solidified - can you imagine the injustice!  Needless to say, I'm sure this will be my most unpopular post - all my readers probably spent their childhoods at socialist-nudist-utopian summer camps like Tamara's - since everyone knows how to make butter.  Alas, it was an extremely simple and rewarding culinary experience for me.

We shook goat milk in a mason jar for about 15 minutes, until the butterfat solids and the whey-like buttermilk separated.  If that description seems as vague as hieroglyphics, just believe me when I say you'll know when you've reached the optimal point.  Next, we drained off and reserved the buttermilk - right into a carton of cultured buttermilk we already had - for use in biscuits, creme fraiche, or cake.  Then, we rinsed the butter by adding a little water to the jar and shaking it and repeating, two or three times.  The last step involved kneading a little salt into the butter with a wooden spoon, but after that, we were rich in goat butter.  Unlike the straight goat's milk or cheeses, the tangy flavor was not noticeable in the butter.

As for the cheese, it is more or less the same preparation as I've previously described for farmer's cheese or really simple ricotta.  We brought the milk to a slow boil and held it at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes.  I turned the heat off and added some cider vinegar.  The proper ratio is 1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of milk.  I stirred until curds developed throughout the pot and then simply ladled the curds and whey into muslin bags.  I tied the bags to the cupboard door and allowed them to drain for about 4 hours.  The result, fairly nice goat cheese.

For some reason I'm reminded of Descartes and the sorting of sheep from goats.  Something about understanding the methods of inquiry involved in sorting the sheep from the goats and needing to understand what those methods are ...

I don't know.  Anyways, I was already eager to raise goats - I love goat cheeses and enjoy eating goat meat.  Discovering that goat butter is every bit as tasty as cow butter is just a little more incentive.  So, assuming things go as planned, which they rarely do, and assuming there is even a plan, which, again, there rarely is, maybe in the spring we'll have a few goats mowing the lawn for us.