Powdered Milk unsuccessful

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Hello, I tried the powdered milk recipe the other day and it didn't work. I think That perhaps I didn't boil it down enough. I did it all day long, just how long does it take for it to get thick and how thick? I was also using cow's milk does that make a difference? Any suggestions would be of great help. Thanks.

-- Megan Milliken (millikenfarm@telus.net), November 17, 2001

Answers

your trying to MAKE powdered milk? sounds as if you were making condensed milk

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), November 17, 2001.

Was your result perhaps a trifle burned? I believe powered milk is made from skim or very low fat cow's milk using a vacuum evaporation method.

-- Joe (CactusJoe001@AOL.com), November 17, 2001.

If you were trying to make powdered milk I can see why it didn't work. I frankly don't know of a recipe for making it at home. But it reads like you almost made a caramel! Try adding sugar to your boiled down milk. You may can it as sweetened condensed milk, or you can cook it waaay down (very carefully!) with the sugar, then add a pinch of baking soda and cook it until it's a nice golden brown. We make this with goat milk and can it for use in our coffee, over icecream, on cake, in pudding,....

-- Ellen (gardenfarm@earthlink.net), November 17, 2001.

The only guaranteed successful recipe I know of for making powdered milk reads "first take your factory....". I suppose it MIGHT be possible to make some at home, but what they achieve in a factory would be so very difficult at home that I wouldn't bother trying. You'd spend a LOT of time trying to make a second-rate version of something you can buy for almost nothing. Some people on this forum can it, and the time-honoured way of preserving milk on a small farm is by making cheese.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 17, 2001.

Thanks for all the responses so quick. I was actually trying the recipe that was posted on this site. She said to render it down til it was thick then place in the oven to dry out overnight and then you put it through a blender. I have tried canning the extra milk but it went really chunky we just strained it when we used it so it wasn't a complete disaster. I just wanted to try this to see it it was a better way of preserving. Thanks again, Megan

-- Megan Milliken (millikenfarm@telus.net), November 17, 2001.


Megan I saw the recipe also. And since my goat milk has been used for years in candy making, I knew exactly what you were going to get boiling down milk for hours! First Cajeta, minus the sugar and vanilia, then a burnt mess! Even in the crockpot, milk left to simmer for hours eventually burns the natural sugar in it. If you do ever come up with something that works post it for us. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 17, 2001.

What Vicki said. Not to mention that whatever it is you come up with will NEVER reconstitute into anything drinkable, I would bet money.

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), November 19, 2001.

I'm dredging my memory here, but I seem to recall that powdered milk is made commercially by a spray drying process. A sketchy bit about it is that the milk is forced at pressure through fine jets into -- ?? at this point I can't remember, but I believe that it is similar to a freeze-drying chamber, which removes the H20 from the solids.

Like when it's really really cold and dry outside and you throw a cup of hot water into the air and it totally evaporates before it hits the ground, except with the milk, you have the solids left to settle out.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), November 20, 2001.


Julie, what I've seen (Mum's cousin managed a milk co-op factory) is warm milk sprayed very finely onto heated stainless-steel rollers, and bathed in a hot air stream. This then all gets crushed into a very thin layer as it's pressed between the rotating hot rollers, then comes off in sheets to break up into a correspondingly fine powder. To make "instant" milk, they then dampen the powder just a little, let the fine grains stick into bigger clumps with an ENORMOUS surface area to mass ratio (so that they'll dissolve much more easily), then dry again.

I CANNOT imagine any non-factory way of achieving powdered milk that would reconstitute into anything acceptable; although as you say freeze-drying would be another way that would work. Of course, freeze- drying works a lot better with solids than liquids.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 20, 2001.


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