possibly dumb milk question

[melanyh]

i'm beginning to educate myself about raw milk, etc., and am trying to find a place in/near dallas (i think there's a ranch 45 miles south ... )

anyway, in the meantime all i can find is non-homogenized milk (still pasteurized). it's the cream on top, of course. now ... this is REALLY showing my noobness ... that huge chunk of cream. what do i do with it? it doesn't dissolve, dissipate w/shaking, etc. should it? i know ... it sounds silly, but i had to ask.

[JamieCatheryn]

Weird, my raw and homogenized milk always shook up just fine. If it was ever frozen it doesn't mix back up too well. Is this one bottle or all of them?

[AJP]

One brand of non-homogenized, pasteurized milk in my area tends to get a very thick plug of cream right at the top of the bottle, it doesn't shake back in because it's so thick. The layer of cream below it is usually thinner, but the thick part is so stiff that it prevents the milk from shaking around in the bottle until you remove it. When I used to buy it, I'd remove the thick part (and use it for something) and then shake the thinner cream back into the milk. There's probably nothing wrong with your milk if it's like that. I think the cream in pasteurized, non-homogenized milk tends to get that very thick layer on top more easily, I have no trouble at all shaking the cream back into raw milk.

[hennaLisa]

raw milk suppliers

Here is a link to a listing of local raw milk suppliers. They have some listed for Dallas area.

http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html

[melanyh]

thank you all.

it IS milk w/an incredibly thick cream plug at the top of the bottle. it is VERY thick. i have to push it down w/my finger and it takes effort. the big chunk just kind of floats around in the milk. the milk smells fine and i don't worry it's bad ... and it's from an area dairy. i just wondered if it was just common knowledge that the chunk just stays or should it dissolve. and what could i do with it? sorry ... i'm new to this w/respect to milks.

a lot of those dallas dairies are for goats, though one, johnson i think, is cows. they sell the steakburger meat and also have raw milk. it's a good hour drive, but could be worth it.

can i ask what raw milk runs in cost? we easily go through 1.5-2 gallons/week...

thank-you for the answers, again. i appreciate it.

[AJP]

Raw milk cost varies wildly. Retail raw milk in my state (with only two licensed raw milk dairies in the whole state) is about $16 to $18/gallon. In some other areas with lower costs of doing business, lower costs of living, more competition and less onerous regulations, it can be more like $5/gallon. You'll just have to ask the suppliers in your area to find out.

[melanyh]

...

wow. i had no idea. oh i HOPE it's not that much here in texas, which it could very well be. at a certain point cost would be prohibitive, unfortunately... thanks for the info.

[mamadelbosque]

I pay ~$5 a gallon for my raw milk. And I have two possible sources - one is totally grassfed but seasonal where I started getting milk from originally. I switched last winter when they ran out to a different dairy (they sold me some frozen milk which I just could *not* stomach - the cream never really disolved it just broke into chunks and the texture was just all wrong.) My herdshare fee is actually $22 per month per gallon, so depending on how many weeks are in the month its a little more or less than that