All posts in Dairy Goat Digest

This article was written by Mike Foran and originally published in the August 2018 issue of the Dairy Goat Digest. Various studies indicate that poor raw milk quality can have a detrimental effect on finished dairy products. Very high levels of somatic cells, bacteria, or both, can lead to increased enzyme levels in pasteurized milk, which negatively impacts finished product quality (e.g. flavour) and shortens the shelf life. Enzymes include lipolytic enzymes, which break down milk fat and cause rancid flavours, and proteolytic enzymes, which break down milk proteins to cause bitter flavours. In particular, research suggests that using milk with very high bacterial and somatic cell counts (SCCs) can result in cheese defects and lower cheese yields. Milk with…