4 Tips for Filtering, Chilling and Cleaning Up To Ensure Clean and Safe Milk

Reader Contribution by Nick Zigelbaum
Published on February 9, 2015
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In my previous posts on making clean milk I covered the definition of clean, how to find a healthy cow, how to set up a clean milk parlor and how to milk. Now I will discuss filtering, chilling and cleaning up.

1. Filter With the Quickness

After milking, I release my cows from the parlor and take the milk to my milk room. This room is a lot like a kitchen, kept clean and free of any animals. In our barn the milk parlor is downstairs and the milk room is upstairs. In here I filter my milk with a stainless milk strainer into a separate stainless milk can (for making yogurt or cheese) or directly into half-gallon jars (for sippin’ milk). It’s important to filter relatively quickly after milking to get any hair, dirt or manure out of the milk before it can cause widespread contamination. It will also improve the flavor and keeping quality of your milk to filter quickly. Longer filter time will directly correlate to total bacteria count. Machine milkers get the convenient benefit of an in-line filter either in the bucket or in a pipeline. This is an excellent way to filter very fast and without much trouble.

For hand-milkers who don’t have the space for a separate milk room, your kitchen sink will do. Just make sure your filter, sponge, and milk containers are only used for milk handling and always kept clean. Using them for anything else will invite contamination.

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