Seperating out the cream

My goats give delicious creamy milk, but the cream does not float to the top as easily as does cows cream.  If you dip it off you would only get about 1/2 cup per gallon.  By using a centrifuge type seperator I get about a pint or a little more per gallon of thick wonderful cream.  It makes great butter, whips into stiff peaks and makes creamy ice cream.  I looked at many different kinds before settling on the one that I have.  Now a days most people just go to the store and buy their cream in a nice little carton.  At $5-$7 a quart I think I will pass.  Their butter most times comes in the form of whipped oil with alot of chemicals and artificial flavors... Again I will pass.  Store bought ice cream is a big No No around our house as my stepdaughter is allergic to the emulsifiers they use.  Her face swells up and she looks like a puffer fish.

I looked at many different kinds.  The good ones that are made from metal now cost close to $1000.  The more inexpensive ones are made from plastic.  As if that will last very long.... I finally settled on one that I bought off of eBay.  It was an antique the guy was not sure if it worked because he had never gotten around to using it.  I took a chance and paid $175 for it shipping and all.  I got it here, cleaned up the insides, replaced an O-ring and filled it with oil (Gun oil because I keep that in gallons).  It worked like a charm.  The trick was learning how to time 60 cranks per minute.  Too fast or too slow and your cream does not seperate out right. Too slow causes the cream to be thinner more like half and half and too fast causes it to not get it all.  It has an adjustment inside so that you can adjust for the desired thickness of your cream.

My seperator is a Sears "economy model" sold in their catalog from 1906 to 1942.  Isn't it pretty mounted on my island top?

The milk must be heated to 100 degrees in order to be run thru the seperator.  The seperator has to be warmed up by running hot water thru it first.

First I put the milk into a double boiler system to heat it up to the correct temperature of 100 degrees

Then I pour it into the prewarmed seperator bowl. Begin to crank to get it to the right speed, turn on the flow and then out flows the seperated milk and cream

The white bowl is catching the milk and the red catching the smaller stream of cream.  This time I harvested light cream for making ice cream.  It is set to the consistency of half and half so I can pour it straight into the ice cream maker.

I use the skim milk for making itallian cheese like Mozzarella and Parmasean.

The fun part is cleaning it up.  There are a ton of internal parts to it!!!