Straining milk

It occurred to me that most of my readers have no idea what I do with milk I've gotten from the cow, to make sure it's clean and pure.

Even though I wash Bonnie's udder thoroughly, and she stands quietly and doesn't stir up any dust, she is an animal, after all. An animal with hair. So although I never see any hair in my bucket of milk, it's always a possibility. I got that plastic Kendall milk filter box at a farm sale, many years ago.

Here you see a milk filter; it's much thicker than a coffee filter... about the thickness of the cotton pad on a band-aid.

I secure the filter in place inside the strainer with this round piece of metal with holes, which fits quite snugly.

Then I put an even snugger metal ring on top of that, to hold the edges of the filter tightly against the sides of the strainer.

I've owned this milk strainer since 1969; my parents used it before they gave it to me. That metal thing between the strainer and the jar that I use to funnel the milk into the jar also came from my parents; I don't know what its original use was, but it works great for this job.

I usually bring in about a gallon of milk taken from the two teats on Bonnie's right side. Her calf, Sir Loin, gets the other two teats. (I've taken to calling him "Little Sir".)


Here you see the milk being strained through the filter and going into the jar.

There goes the last of it. Considering the thickness of the filter, it strains pretty fast, probably twenty or thirty seconds. Milk taken straight from the cow always has that foam on top when you first bring it in.