This “Pepper Jack” recipe takes about 45 minutes start to finish and yields 2 pounds of firm cheese that can be shredded, sliced or melted. It freezes well, is an excellent topping for chili, quesadillas, and makes an amazing mac ‘n’ cheese. It is our family favorite so I make this recipe twice a week and freeze enough for the 2 months our goats are dry.

Ingredients:

2 gal goat milk

1T citric acid dissolved in 1c distilled water

¼ vegetarian rennet tablet dissolved in 1/4c distilled water

2t kosher salt

1t red pepper flakes

Tools needed:

Large stock pot

Cheese ladle

Cheese knife

Small containers lined with plastic wrap to act as molds

Instructions:

Add the citric acid solution to the 2 gallons of fresh goat milk and stir well. Heat the milk to 86 degrees, stirring frequently.  Add the rennet solution; stir 20 times with cheese ladle using an up and down motion. Continue heating on low heat but do not stir.

Watch for curd to pull away from the side of the pot and for clear yellow whey to fill in the space. As soon as the curd firms up, using a cheese knife, cut through the curd into 1 inch squares. Stir very gently with ladle while heating on low to 105 degrees. The whey will come out of the curd and the curds will shrink and firm up like scrambled egg.

Strain half of the curds into a glass bowl and using your hands, squeeze gently and form into a ball. Microwave 1 minute and stretch and fold the cheese while it is warm until it becomes smooth and shiny. Microwave 1 minute more, add the salt and the red pepper flakes on top and then continue folding and stretching to incorporate thoroughly.

Place in a small container lined with plastic wrap, cover with plastic and place in the fridge to chill. Repeat with the other half of the curds. Chill at least overnight before slicing for sandwiches or quesadillas, or shredding for mac ‘n’ cheese or chili. Wrap well and freeze either in brick form or shredded. Keeps for 7-10 days in fridge.

Fill 2 gallons of lukewarm water and run through. Dump out.Fill 2 gallons of hot water and add 1oz “Dairyland Chlorinated Pipeline Detergent”; run through.

Scrub inside of stainless milk bucket in places not covered by solution. Take off rubber gasket and swish in solution; scrub inside of lid.

Dump out, making sure to pour from both sides.

Repeat steps 2-4 but with ½ oz “Dairyland Milkstone Remover and Acid Rinse” and twice a week use 1oz per 2 gallons instead.

Hang hoses to dry and shine stainless steel milk bucket with white vinegar before placing it upside-down on drying mat. Total time: 15 minutes.

*I buy the chemicals in 5 gallon buckets and re-use the smaller jugs. I calculated the price and it’s actually less costly than using bleach/dish soap/vinegar. And I have the added security of knowing the chemicals are safe for the hoses, approved for milk sales, and our milk lasts 10 days in the fridge.

Our new doe barn has a dirt floor. Since it was summer, we hosed down the dirt and let the goats compact it with their hooves. That didn’t work. The fans created a dust storm and when they shoved each their hooves dug up my hard packed floor. We debated the cost of decomposed granite, looked into the honeycomb forms with sand used for muddy horse areas, and priced stall mats. In the mean time rats discovered our new barn and dug holes, muddied water buckets, and left the soft dirt covered with little flower-shaped foot prints of all sizes every morning. Big river rats that dig holes the size of ground hogs!

We decided to try an experiment just to see if it would work. We bought big roles of hardware cloth to line the bottom. That involved rototilling, digging out about 6″ of soil and laying several rows of mesh. We used “J clips” to secure the pieces together so that the rats wouldn’t dig up and through. That worked- the rats furiously dug holes each night all around the outside perimeter but couldn’t get in. The goats enjoyed their clean water and I slept better not having to worry about listeria.

After leveling the soft silt, the next plan was to get barn lime from Tractor Supply. For $3.39/50lbs it’s a steal and the crushed limestone is safe for sensitive udders. We started with about 12 bags, mixing it into the top layer of the dirt floor. We wet that, tamped it and added another 6 bags to dry out the surface. The goats continued to sleep on sheets of plywood and up on chairs.

It didn’t take long to dry and harden and now I would say it is almost identical to decomposed granite. Absorbing urine and providing a hard surface, it’s easy to clean with a soft broom. I sprinkle lime on the wet spots each morning, which helps with odor and dries the area. Temporary kidding stalls will be bedded with straw but the main doe area will be lime dirt floor. Eventually we plan to build sleeping shelves, but we do not plan to use stall mats or straw on the main floor. There’s minimal dust and so far it’s working out great!

Our Milk Room is a work in progress and there’s a list of stuff that needs to be finished, but this is what we have so far. It’s usable and I love how bright and cheery it is.

Here we see the milk stand with the vacuum pump for the milk machine underneath. It’s plugged into an outlet with a switch so I can easily flip it on and off. There is a “mud rug” on the deck to provide a non-slip surface and it’s nice to be able to take it outside and shake it off. The “Dutch” door goes to the does’ barn. I keep the top part open while milking so I can keep an eye on everybody. There’s a mini fridge/freezer with medications and supplements, ice for disbudding and frozen water bottles to cool down the milk quickly. And there’s a fan for when the temp gets in the 90-112 range in the summer.

The cabinets are filled with everything from syringes to herbal supplements. There’s a kitchen scale, bathroom scale, disbudding iron, Oster clippers and blades, measuring cups, iodine, etc. I keep a drench syringe, zip ties, caribiners, a thermometer, a stethoscope, etc in the drawers. On the counter there’s supplements I give daily (Diamond V yeast culture & dolomite), treats, a container of scissors, hoof clippers, pliers, and at the far end the stainless bucket for the milk machine. It sits on a dish mat and hiding behind it are my dish gloves and long-handle scrub brush. The far cabinet contains a small water heater with the reverse osmosis filters and pressurized tank. On the floor I have the chemicals and buckets for cleaning the milk machine.

Here’s a better look at the sink area but also part of the shelving with bins. There are a dozen bins with organic alfalfa pellets, organic dairy pellets, organic chicken feed, kelp, diatomaceous earth, Redmond salt, goat minerals, etc. The extra bags are piled on the floor. Up on top there’s bins with kidding supplies, towels, baby bottles, goat sweaters, show leads, etc.

Here you can see the hoses and inflations for the milk machine hanging to dry. The white board is where I write the “menu” so that if anyone else has to feed, there’s no confusion as to who gets what. I also have breeding dates and other notes written there. The sling for the baby scale is hanging on the back of the door along for a hook for my rain coat/winter jacket. Then you can see extra feed bins, udder wash, paper towels, teat spray, etc. There’s strip cups and disposable gloves in the drawer, and a hanging scale for weighing milk and babies.

You are welcome to e-mail if you have any questions about what something is, where I got it, how I use it, etc.

One of the many reasons why people love Nigerians so much is because of the endless color possibilities. There are several solid colors (cream-gold-red and chocolate-black) and several common color patterns (buckskin, chamoisee, swiss-marked, etc) and then there is the white over-lay which mixes it all up a bit. Some colors/patterns are dominant and some are recessive and some create a combination. If you want to study more, check out Coat Colors and Nigerian Dwarf Color Genetics.

After 11 buckskins, Acorn gave us a black baby. We thought we had one 4 years ago but she turned out to be a dark chocolate, so this one was quite a surprise. Black is a recessive allele so it takes one from the sire and one from the dam to show up in offspring. Because Clark’s dam was black, we know he has a recessive black allele hiding behind his dominant buckskin. Although Acorn looks like a solid chocolate under her white, she’s actually a chocolate buckskin, which is why she and Clark have so many buckskins. Side note here- because she is a chocolate buckskin and he’s a black buckskin and they both have a black recessive, they should have 75% buckskins with a black cape and 25% with a chocolate cape.

Anyway, we didn’t realize Acorn had the black recessive allele; we thought she had a chocolate instead. So the big question was where did she get it? She doesn’t have any close black relatives. Acorn’s dam was chocolate and her maternal grandparents were chocolate and a light buckskin. Her sire, Castle Rock Cleveland Sage is gold and his dam was chocolate and his sire, Castle Rock Tanzanite was gold. But… his sire was Castle Rock Guy Noir, who was black. Found it! 5 generations back and passed as a hidden recessive just waiting to meet up with another recessive black. Knowing this, there is a 25% chance Acorn and Clark will have black offspring, but we’re at about 10% at this point. And one more interesting thing is that Firefly’s little black and white baby got her black color from Firefly, obviously, who got the recessive from her buckskin sire. Sly Farms Catching Fire got it from his dam Sly Farms Catalina, who is black and is guess who’s daughter? Castle Rock Guy Noir 5 generations back. Fun!