How I Make Butter from Goat Millk

I had a reader ask on another post about how I make butter from my goat milk. It is an easy process although a bit tedious since I don't have any of the fancy equipment like cream separators. Each day I collect the cream off the previous day's milk. I then place this into a container (quart size) that I keep in the freezer for cream collection. When the container is full, I then take it out and let it thaw out. Then I divide it between 2 quart mason jars. Put the lids on and shake, shake, shake. This is a good time to dance around the house with your 3 year old, they love it and you are still working. The cream will start to clump together and then you will have a large ball of butter in the jar. Next, poor the mixture through a strainer lined with clean muslin. You can collect the liquid to feed to the chickens if you like or use in bread recipes. Next I place the butter in a bowl and start washing it with ice water or cold water from the fridge. regular tapwater melts the butter. just keep washing the butter ans squishing it around until the water runs off clear. So the process is wash, pour off and wash again, until the water poured off is clear. Then salt the butter or not depending on taste and place in clean container. I keep mine on the counter as it doesn't last long around here and gets hard in the fridge. The key thing to making this butter is to wash it really well. If you don't get all the leftover milk out of the butter it will sour. It also doesn't make much. I suppose I get about a 1/4 pound give or take from doing this. I think some of it also depends on what kind of goats you have. My nubians give more cream than my nubian/saanen, so that may be why folks who own other breeds simply can't get butter this way. Nubians and Nigerian dwarfs have the highest butterfat content in the dairy goat world. That is the reason that I chose my nubies. Now it will be interesting to see what my Boer/Nubian gives in cream since boers supposedly have very high fat in their milk.So if you have trouble getting any cream from your milk after it has stood in the fridge for 24 hours or so, it may be the breed of goat that you have and the fact that they simply don't have a high cream content. Good luck in your buttermaking!