It is very important to produce and store raw milk correctly so you have access to the product in its purest, cleanest form. Keep your milk refrigerated including putting out a cooler with ice or gel-packs for the delivery driver to place the milk into if you are not home. Let’s look at why this is important.
We at Creamy Cow Dairy believe that raw milk is one of the healthiest foods out there. It's the original milk that all the other products try to reproduce. Raw milk has a profile of micro and macro nutrients that benefit our bodies and strengthen our immune systems. Other milk products, including pasteurized cow's milk, cannot compare. For a detailed comparison, visit https://www.realmilk.com/vitamins-and-minerals/.
It is exactly these beneficial micro and macro nutrients that make the milk prone to spoilage if not kept cold. Just like all living foods (sourdough, fermented pickles, yogurt, kefir, cheese), the population of enzymes and bacteria need to be in the proper proportions. If the milk gets warm, certain bacteria will grow and kill off others. If you change the balance in an uncontrolled manner, the results will be unpredictable. For instance, making milk ferments like yogurt, kefir and cheese, we control the changes in microbe presence to create a desired outcome. If you are drinking your milk straight and not creating a culture, keeping the milk cold is the best way to store your milk and prevent introducing unwanted microbes.
The history of pasteurization will help to illustrate why refrigeration is so important. There is a good reason producers turned to pasteurization at the turn of the 20th Century: At that time the cows and their milk were not being handled correctly and therefore the product was making people sick.
The sickness came from bacteria which had gotten out of hand due to shoddy production methods. The industrial food producers of the early 1900s were found to keep their animals in poor conditions and to be rife with corrupt business practices. This affected the products sold to consumers. This is the same era of farming practices that inspired Upton Sinclair to write The Jungle.
It is interesting to note that the first places in the US to mandate pasteurization were Chicago (1907) and New York City (1910) - large cities with distance between large-scale farming and their residents, giving plenty of handling and transportation opportunities for the milk to spoil.
“Barns were frequently filthy, and some cows were fed swill left over from whiskey distillation. An 1895 study found that more than one-fourth of 165 herds examined in 17 states harbored tuberculosis. Many distributors were no better. Ten percent of the milk examined by Philadelphia’s milk inspector during July and August of 1891 was condemned because it had been adulterated by some additive or diluted with water.”
So, if the cows were kept in unsanitary conditions and fed poor fodder, and the milk was not quickly cooled to a safe temperature, and if the distributors were handling the milk poorly or even adulterating it, there was plenty of opportunity to introduce and encourage pathogens. This was the situation during the time when pasteurization was introduced, and it did save lives, particularly among the poor people who received milk from the government.
At Creamy Cow we take great care by ensuring healthy lives for our herd and by handling the milk professionally, so that our track record for safety is spotless. In 14 years of producing milk we have never had a customer report sickness. We do this by making sure the animals are as healthy as possible and by meticulously careful handling of the milk.
For some context, it is helpful to realize that raw milk is not a controversial product in many countries around the world. It is legal in France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, England, Ireland, and Wales. It is also legal in half of the states in the USA.
Here are the practices we follow for safely harvesting and storing raw milk:
We feed our cows fresh forage or high quality organic hay and keep them out in the sunlight on rotated pastures. This ensures their immune systems are strong and the pests are minimized in the fields.
We monitor the herd carefully, washing and maintaining their bodies to the best of our ability without applying antibiotics
We clean and sanitize the cow’s udder, belly and hindquarters before and after milking
We use modern dairy equipment to strain milk for debris
We use modern dairy equipment cool the milk to under 38 degrees Fahrenheit in less than 40 minutes
We store consumer portions of milk in glass
We use modern sanitizing practices on the entire milk house before and after milking
We regularly test for pathogens
We treat our cows with respect and note that they are relaxed and happy during the milking process
Here's what you can do to maintain the quality of the milk you purchase:
Keep it cold:
Provide a cooler with ice if you aren’t home when we deliver.
Keep raw milk in the fridge at a temperature of 34–42°F. Don't leave it out at room temperature, and don't store it in the fridge door where the temperature fluctuates.
Use clean containers: Store milk in clean glass jars that are 2 quarts or smaller. Plastic lids are better than metal lids because metal can rust and get damaged.
Don't mix: Don't mix old and new milk, or warm and cold milk.
Freeze it: If you won't use the milk quickly, you can freeze it. Make sure to allow room for expansion and don't freeze it in glass jars. Thaw frozen milk in the fridge or in a pan of cold water, and shake well before using.