Buttermilk...the first step of our cheese!

We start our cheese with our fresh milk from our own goats.  Here is 1 gallon fresh, filtered milk waiting to be turned into cheese.

Before I get ahead of myself, I must explain that buttermilk is the medium we use to grow our cheese.  We start with a good quality Cultured Buttermilk....

It contains the live cultures you need to keep the buttermilk growing.  As long as you do not neglect it, you will have your own fresh grown buttermilk using your own goat milk for eternity.  I dry my does off and dont have the milk to make the next batch at that time so I start fresh each year.

This is my buttermilk jar.  It is old, and it does this job best.  First you scrub it really good.  Then you rinse it, spray it with a 50/50 bleach solution, rinse again...and then let dry.   After all that is done you add 2T of the cultured buttermilk to the jar.  Then fill the jar with your fresh good goat milk (fresh from the goat so that the temperature is right).  Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the top and attach it with a rubberband.

Let it sit on your counter until it has thickened.  This time of year it is so cold, I don't know how long it will take.  I've made buttermilk in 6 hours during summer months....but I suspect it will be a day or so as cold as it is.