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Permalink Reply by Ray on May 18, 2009 at 10:22pm

We use a small local dairy here (Norris Dairy). I remember when I noticed the milk wasn't texturing well, one day. I told Evan (one of the owners of the Café) about it and suggested something had changed at the dairy. He steamed some, noticed what I was noticing and called the dairy. We had new milk the next day...they had switched the cows to a different pasture.
Vendors that listen to and take care of customers > vendors that don't

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Permalink Reply by Brandon on May 18, 2009 at 10:27pm

whoa ray what do you guys use?! Thats intense!
If you can source local high quality milk I highly recommend it. In addition to being less resource exhaustive it is usually fresher and better and obviously relationships like Ray mentioned cannot be applauded enough.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Vick on May 19, 2009 at 3:01am

things to look for...

centrifuge fat separation...how does the processing facility separate the solids upon reception of the raw milk from the farm. there are two methods: warm bowl and cold bowl. warm bowls are faster and more modern, but heat the milk as the fats are being separated, dramatically reducing the sweetness in the finished product. cold bowls are harder to come by, but produce much sweeter milk. the processing of milk can be compared to roasting, you can have extremely high quality raw dairy product coming in, and F it all up in the processing method.

look for milk that comes from cows that have not been treated with hormones (RBST, RBGH).

taste, taste, taste. when milk professionals evaluate milk for defect and quality, they have certain methods they use just as we do in coffee. for us, when we roast samples for cupping, we roast very lightly to not mask the coffee with any kind roast profile. this shows us any defects that are in the coffee, and if you've been at it long enough, you can tell what more can be done with a particular roast profile. with milk, tast nonfat milk. fat, like roast, masks defect and can artificially enhance sweetness.

gather all the non-fat milks you can (even different packaging of the same brand!) and taste them blindly side-by-side. you will notice huge differences. the reason i mention packaging is because often, depending on the market, the same milk will be processed in different facilities and end up in similar (but slightly different packaging). this is often the case for organic valley's line of dairy products.

hope this helps.

--stephen

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Permalink Reply by Brady on May 19, 2009 at 5:42am

Stephen Vick said:

things to look for...

centrifuge fat separation...how does the processing facility separate the solids upon reception of the raw milk from the farm. there are two methods: warm bowl and cold bowl. warm bowls are faster and more modern, but heat the milk as the fats are being separated, dramatically reducing the sweetness in the finished product. cold bowls are harder to come by, but produce much sweeter milk. the processing of milk can be compared to roasting, you can have extremely high quality raw dairy product coming in, and F it all up in the processing method.

look for milk that comes from cows that have not been treated with hormones (RBST, RBGH).

taste, taste, taste. when milk professionals evaluate milk for defect and quality, they have certain methods they use just as we do in coffee. for us, when we roast samples for cupping, we roast very lightly to not mask the coffee with any kind roast profile. this shows us any defects that are in the coffee, and if you've been at it long enough, you can tell what more can be done with a particular roast profile. with milk, tast nonfat milk. fat, like roast, masks defect and can artificially enhance sweetness.

gather all the non-fat milks you can (even different packaging of the same brand!) and taste them blindly side-by-side. you will notice huge differences. the reason i mention packaging is because often, depending on the market, the same milk will be processed in different facilities and end up in similar (but slightly different packaging). this is often the case for organic valley's line of dairy products.

hope this helps.

--stephen

Thanks Stephen, had never heard that bit about tasting nonfat milk. Very cool tip.

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Permalink Reply by cisco on May 19, 2009 at 7:37am

Thanks a lot. that's really helpful. i will definitely be using that info.

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Permalink Reply by Portland Roasting on May 19, 2009 at 12:15pm

Up here in Portland I think we are blessed with outstanding local Dairy. Sunshine Dairy just won the Irvin B Weber award that I am told is a high honor. There are some great Dairy's in California as well like Berkley Farms or if you really want to go all out Straus Family Farms is amazing. Mix the Straus with some standard homogenized whole milk and it makes for a perfect soft capp.

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