Goat Milk

A question we get a lot - what does goat milk taste like?  Answer - milk - great sweet tasting whole milk.  Now, I will admit I am OCD about milk.  When I was growing up, I would smell the milk carton before drinking - used to make my mother mad and she would say "I just bought that.  It's from Braum's."  I didn't care.  I think somewhere at some time, I must have drank spoiled milk and had a phobia about it - still might to this day!  Nothing worse than bad tasting milk!  So, there are a lot of factors that go into great tasting milk or bad tasting milk.  First, it's the health of the animal, an unhealthy animal won't produce good tasting milk.  Second, it's what they are eating.  For example, when a certain weed is blooming and thriving around here - possibly ragweed - the milk is "off flavored" and horrendous, so I'm super careful to keep the girls I'm milking off the pastures and eating only hay and grain at that time.  Third, it's all in the handling of the milk.  Have I said I am uber picky about milk?  I use only stainless steel (SS) and glass in my handling of milk.  I milk into a SS pail with a small opening which limits debris getting into the milk.  As soon as the goat is milked, I strain the milk and begin the chilling process.  Grade A standards say that milk should be brought down to 40 degrees within one hour of milking - I have my milk below 40 degrees in less than 15 minutes.  How? I use an ice cream maker.  The quicker you can bring the temperature of the milk down, the less likely the milk is to take on "off flavors" from the environment.  After chilling, all my milk is stored in 1/2 gallon glass jars.

Funny story #1 - So, back in the early Colorado years and our first Saanen doe in milk.  I was my uber careful self about cleanliness and milking.  Brought in the first gallon I milked.  Pasteurized and chilled it.  First sip.  Gary asked how it was.  My reply - "tastes like the alfalfa."  Skeptical, Gary tasted it.  Now, Gary's not a big milk drinker.  He took a sip and said - tastes like milk.  He then told me to go get the cow's milk and taste it.  I did and guess what - it tasted like alfalfa too!  It was all psychological.

Funny story #2 - so the following is partially how we got our name, Honey Milk Farms.  I sold a couple of goats to a friend who had a son with eczema.  As is very usual for a lot of those who suffer from eczema, they also have an intolerance for cow's milk and/or products.  The friend actually had several sons and decided to switch the whole family to goat's milk.  After all, she had plenty of great tasting milk - I verified it.  One son, who was a close friend to my son, William - for the purpose of this story, we'll call him D.  One day D was at our house and claimed goat milk was awful and he could taste it even if it was in a recipe or used in anything.  D refused to drink goat milk or anything that contained goat milk.  So, Gary and I devised a test, a double blind test.  We took whole cow milk, goat milk and low fat 1% cow milk.  We had three of William's friends, including D, who did the test.  Gary and I prepared the samples and William had no clue which was which.  William administered the test.  We had samples A, B, and C.  Each tester did their test individually and Gary and I changed the test for each tester so no tester had the same A, B and C.  Reminder, William was not privy to any of this - we put the samples on a tray and handed them to William outside the door so that William could not influence any results.  Gary and I remained outside of the testing center and out of view so we would not give the testers any "clues." Results - all three testers said the 1% cow milk was the goat milk!  And D said the goat milk was cow milk with sugar!

Goat milk vs. Cow milk...Here are some links to learn more about the differences:
Link to Dr. Axe comparison of goat vs cow milk
Link to article by naturopathic doctor Kate Morrison
Link to PDF Goat milk is healthier