DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! My adventure in separating cream.

THAT's what I think of every time I look at this machine.  I can't help it.  I hate most of the techno advances.  To me, each advance seems to be in exchange for something.  Kind of like trying to breed the "perfect chicken" or the "perfect goat".....you can't get a chicken that is a good consistent layer, good mother, and have enough meat on her bones to butcher.  It just doesn't happen. You get a nervous hen that has no meat, but lays well.....or you have a nice plump mama bird that is more interested in hatching and tending her babies than to give you eggs.  With goats, you can eat any of them.  You can milk any of them.  But do you want meat and just hit-and-miss milk?  Or do you want MILK with the benefit of a bit of meat.  Know what you want, but don't get greedy.  It does not all come in one package.

Okay I'm rambling....that's because I fought the robot for nearly 4 hours this morning. Had plenty to think about while trying to use civil language at the machine, it's instructions, and all the websearches I had to do to finally put it all down and use my brain.  Duh.  You know the project is in dire straits if I have to resort to such things.  And so this is how it went.

• First I read the manual.  I'm a stickler for reading the instructions.
• Scrubbed all 10 milllion parts of the machine..here are a few of them....

• Assembled the machine....and ran very hot water through it...

I heated the milk to the correct 100º F temperature. (for goat milk, the instructions say that you should collect a minimum of 2 gallons, and let the milk sit refrigerated for 2 days before separating.  When you are ready to separate cream, you re-heat the milk to 100º prior to pouring it into the machine).

Next, the machine is turned on and allowed to run for 1 full minute.  Then you pour in the milk and pray that all your hard work will come out as thick, rich, beautiful cream.....

And it didn't work.

So I repeated.

And it didn't work.

So I re-read instructions, cleaned it all and repeated.

And it didn't work!

I did it over and over again so much that the milk should have been churned into butter.  But milk only came out the milk spout.  No cream.  It just wasn't possible!  I KNEW there was plenty of cream on that milk when I started!

So I took a deep breath and pondered it all.  The machine seemed to be bogged down.  So I did the unthinkable and took out one of the metal spinny thingys and pluged it in and had a go.......

YAY!!!

And look at it working ..... just as it should!!

I swear I could hear a chior singing when I saw this beautiful sight....

I had 2 1/2 gallons of milk to start with......ended with 3 cups of very thick syrupy beautiful cream....

Now the machine doesn't frighten me.  I know what it is, and I know how to use that thing.  (I think).  Does this mean that I have crossed into the dark side?  Is the dark side full of beautiful luxurious heavy goat cream?

All these years of raising goats.  All the does that I've milked, raising kids, dealing with bucks, clipping, worming, hoof trimming, feeding, hauling fresh water during winter months, sitting in a freezing barn waiting for that doe to deliver so that we can get the kid inside to warmth....the bottles.....the POOP....the lost sleep....

Why the heck did it take me THIS long to separate cream????!??!?!?!?!?!?!