So I eat a ton of butter, like a pound or two a week, I love the stuff. I've made basic butter a few times, but heavy cream is pricey and butter is work heavy.
I also eat a ton of cheese, I love real smoked string cheese, but it's as expensive as beef. I never looked into making cheese because I always assumed it required raw milk. My mom's church food pantry has to dump a boatload of milk every couple weeks because of the way the government works, if you dont take all they offer, they begin to cut you off. Mostly 2 percent. So out of curiosity I wondered if there was a cheese that could be made (turns out pasteurized 2 percent is the milk required for parmesan) That's a hard cheese and takes a press and 6 to 12 months to ripen. Anyhow, once I found out pasteurized commercial milk is actually preferred for most common cheeses since the milk fat is consistent, I've been reading more and more about the cheese, the byproduct of cheese, the uses of the byproduct and the byproduct of the byproduct. Low and behold certain cheese like cheddar have a byproduct of sweet whey, from which sweet cream can be extracted to make butter. So now I'm hooked on reading more. According to most recipes 1 gallon whole milk will yield a pound of hard cheese like cheddar or two pounds of soft cheese and the whey will yield a third to half pound of butter. With the remaining byproduct having a couple uses from protein additive to plant food. Not to shabby for something that can be got for a buck 50 on sale per gallon at retail. And is a waste product of food banks (sadly they cannot accept back processed cheese and butter) But anyway this rabbit hole just goes deeper, turns out the demand for Greek yogurt has caused damage for the environment and the demand for protein additives has caused commercial cheese prices to not rise with inflation or even go down. Companies actually start making cheese to get they sweet whey byproduct to convert into protein. The massive demand for Greek yogurt created an excess of acid whey that used to just be sprayed on farms. But there is too much now, it will kill waterways because the organics it it and produce algae blooms. A lake was killed because of cheese. An entire industry has been created to research what to do with it. Whole point is milk is some pretty complex shit. It's like an addiction trying to find out more about this. If you're looking to kill some time, start reading about cheese making
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