If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m a dairy lover. Nutritious and delicious, dairy is a delectable way to get your daily nutrients. But like anything, consuming the same thing day in and day out can get boring.
With dairy, the variety is endless–you simply need to know all the options. This guide will cover everything from ayran to zincica (yes, those are both dairy products).
We’ll approach dairy in terms of categories for a more comprehensive understanding. After reading, you’ll never run out of ways to get your daily fix of dairy.
1. Milk
It all starts with milk. Whole, grass-fed, raw milk. Liquid gold. None of that pasteurized, homogenized, skimmed nonsense. Most grocery stores don’t carry raw milk, so your best bet is to find a local farmer or a specialized grocery store.
2. Clabber
If you leave raw milk for long enough, the milk’s naturally occurring bacteria will ferment the milk, creating something like a cross between yogurt and kefir. Eventually, the milk will separate into curds and whey. You can drink the soured milk directly or drain the whey from the curds for a yogurt-like consistency.
Clabber has many uses in baked goods like pancakes and muffins. Before baking powder was widely available, clabber was used to provide leavening. Clabber Girl baking powder was literally named for this product it was mimicking.
You must use high-quality raw milk to make safe clabbered milk. In raw milk, the beneficial bacteria create an acidic environment that keeps harmful microbes from growing. In pasteurized milk, the beneficial bacteria have been killed, allowing other contaminants to flourish. Fermenting milk is very different than having milk spoil.
Clabber is arguably the easiest milk product you can make. To speed up the souring process, leave the milk at room temperature. For even faster results, save a few spoonfuls from the previous batch and plop it into the milk for the next batch.
3. Yogurt
Yogurt is a close cousin of clabber. In addition to the naturally present bacteria in the milk, live cultures (good bacteria) are added. The milk is heated to create a warm environment for the bacteria to grow and thicken the milk.
Interestingly, yogurt was first made accidentally by herders thousands of years ago. They used animal stomachs to store the milk, and the stomach lining’s bacteria turned the milk into yogurt.
Typically, the yogurt-making process looks like this:
- Heat the milk to 180 degrees Fahrenheit
- Let it cool to around 110 degrees Fahrenheit (a temperature that yogurt cultures thrive in)
- Mix the yogurt culture into the milk
- Keep the milk at 110 degrees for 4-8 hours (do this with an oven, slow cooker, heating pad, yogurt maker, etc)
- Refrigerate
You can obtain the yogurt culture from any store-bought yogurt. Just take a spoonful of that yogurt and mix it in with the milk. Don’t forget to save a spoonful of your current batch for your next batch.
The longer the yogurt incubates, the thicker and sourer it becomes. Whey, the water byproduct of milk fermentation, will accumulate on top. You can whisk the liquid back in or strain it out for a thicker yogurt.
To keep the yogurt raw, instead of heating the milk to 180 degrees, heat it to 110 degrees. Any higher temperature will kill the enzymes present in raw milk. That said, heating the yogurt to 180 degrees tends to give a more consistent and thicker texture.
There are many types of yogurt depending on what bacteria are used, whether it is strained, how long it is strained, etc. Here are some common types of yogurt:
- Ayran (Turkish yogurt drink)
- Australian yogurt
- Borhani (Bangladeshi yogurt drink)
- Bulgarian yogurt
- Filmjolk (Scandinavian yogurt)
- Greek yogurt
- Lassi (Indian yogurt drink)
- Matzoon (Armenian yogurt drink)
- Skyr (Icelandic yogurt)
- Viili (Finnish yogurt)
- Ymer (Danish yogurt)
4. Kefir
Kefir is like a drinkable yogurt. But instead of heating the milk, adding a culture, and keeping it warm (as you would with yogurt), you simply add kefir grains to milk at room temperature to make kefir.
What are kefir grains? They’re not actually grains. Rather, they’re rubbery clusters of gut-friendly bacteria, yeasts, and enzymes. You add about a tablespoon of these grains to four cups of milk. Then you cover the milk, let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours, and strain it to separate the kefir grains from the kefir.
If there’s a yellowish liquid on the top, don’t worry. It’s whey, and it just means you can reduce the length of fermentation or use more milk next time.
You can reuse kefir grains indefinitely. In fact, the best way to keep them healthy is to use them regularly. Every time you use the grains, they will grow and multiply. You can discard the extra, share it with friends, or eat them.
If you need a break, put them in a jar of milk in the fridge for up to 2 months. Remember, the milk won’t spoil because the kefir’s good bacteria prevent the bad bacteria from growing.
Some specialty kefir drinks include kumis (a Mongolian horse milk kefir) and zinzica (a Slovakian sheep milk kefir).
5. Cheese
Cheesemaking is a more involved process:
- Prepare the milk: heat the milk to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (always keep the milk below 110 degrees Fahrenheit to preserve its rawness)
- Acidify the milk: add starter cultures to the milk and wait for 30 minutes
- Coagulate the milk: add rennet to the milk which will cause curds to form and separate from the liquid whey
- Cut the curd: cut the curds to create more surface area on the curd and help the whey separate
- Process the curd: depending on the type of cheese, the curds may need to be heated, stirred, or further processed to separate the curds from the whey
- Drain the whey: there are many methods to drain the whey including cheddaring (stacking curd slabs to increase pressure and force out moisture)
- Salt the cheese: sprinkle dry salt or submerge the cheese in a brine
- Shape the cheese: even with so much moisture removed, the curd is still malleable and can be pressed into molds to create standard shapes
- Age the cheese: duration, humidity, temperature, and bacterial factors are all controlled to create the final product
There are countless variations within each step and between these steps based on the type of cheese. For example, cheeses like cream cheese, cottage cheese, paneer, and quark don’t use rennet to coagulate the milk. Instead, they use an acid like vinegar or lemon juice.
6. Whey
Whey is the yellowish liquid byproduct of making dairy products. It’s rich in proteins and good bacteria. This is not to be confused with store-bought powdered whey, which is high-heat pasteurized and mingled with toxins during production.
There are two types of whey: acidic whey and sweet whey. Acidic whey comes from clabber, yogurt, kefir, and acid-coagulated cheeses. Sweet whey comes from cheeses made with no acid. If you’re making something sweet, use sweet whey. If you’re making something savory, use acidic whey.
There are many wheys to use whey (pun intended):
- Substitute (sweet) whey in any baking recipe that calls for water
- Use whey to lacto-ferment vegetables, condiments, and chutneys
- Use it to soak nuts, legumes, and grains
- Use it to cook pasta, potatoes, oatmeal, rice, etc
- Stick it in smoothies
- Drink it directly
- Add it to stews and soups
- Feed it to farm critters (they love whey)
- Use it in dressings or marinades
- Make ricotta cheese
- Use it to water plants
7. Cream
There’s a reason people say “cream of the crop” to refer to the best. The cream is the richest and fattiest part of the milk that rises to the top. In raw milk, the cream will naturally float to the top. Various cream products can be made by skimming this high-fat layer from raw milk.
In order of butterfat content:
- Whole raw milk (4%)
- Ice cream (at least 10%)
- Half-and-half (10.5% to 18%)
- Sour cream (at least 18%)
- Light cream (18% to 30%)
- Creme fraiche (30%)
- Whipping cream (30% to 36%)
- Heavy cream (at least 36%)
- Clotted cream (at least 55%)
Cultured creams like creme fraiche and sour cream are made by combining cream with a bacterial culture and letting it undergo fermentation at room temperature.
8. Butter
Butter is cream that has been whipped or churned past the point of whipped cream, causing the cream to separate into butterfat and buttermilk (the liquid byproduct). At around 80% butterfat, butter is a semisolid form of cream. The rest is around 17% water and 2% milk solids. The butter-making procedure follows these general steps:
- Put heavy cream in a mixer, blender, or butter churn
- Mix the cream until it separates into butter and buttermilk
- Strain out the buttermilk
- Add salt and other seasonings if you’d like
- Shape it and refrigerate
Here are the common types of butter:
- Sweet cream butter: butter made from regular cream as opposed to cultured cream
- Cultured butter: butter made from cultured cream that gives it a slightly tangy taste
- European butter: butter with at least 82% butterfat (as opposed to a minimum of 80% butterfat in American butter)
- Clarified butter: butter simmered until the milk solids separate (which also causes the water to evaporate) and then strained for a 99% butterfat composition
- Ghee: same as clarified butter, but instead of removing the butter from the heat when the milk solids separate, you leave it to cook a little longer until the milk solids are browned, adding a nutty flavor
- Brown butter (beurre noisette): same as ghee but without the milk solids strained out
9. Buttermilk
Last but not least, we have buttermilk, the liquid byproduct of making butter. You may see cultured buttermilk on grocery store shelves, but this is not true buttermilk. Rather, it’s made from milk and bacterial cultures. Real buttermilk is made from cream, not milk.
There are two types of buttermilk: sweet cream buttermilk and sour cream buttermilk. Sweet cream buttermilk is made from regular cream, while sour cream buttermilk is made from cultured cream. Buttermilk, like whey, is high in nutrients and friendly bacteria.
There are many ways to use buttermilk:
- Use it in baking
- Use it in marinades and dressings
- Drink it directly
- Give it to your animals
- Use it as a beauty product
- Soak grains with it
The Spice of Life
As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life. If you ever tire of a certain dairy product, try something else on this list. But be cautious of plant-based dairy alternatives. To mimic dairy products, these plant foods undergo processing that is often horrible for our health. It’s better to stick with real dairy that has nourished humans for millenniums.
Below is a flowchart summarizing the categories of dairy products. If you want even more variety, consider milk from sheep, goats, and even camels!
