A few months ago, we received this note from a customer:
I was wondering if you might post on your “recipes wanted” section a request for recipes specifically developed or adapted for sheep’s milk? I know three are a number of English and European cheese made with ewe’s milk but very few recipes on line or in my books seem to specifically deal with it.
Here at New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, we don’t have much opportunity to use sheep milk with our recipes. We can tell you some of the basics, but we admit to having very limited experience with the real thing. So, if you have a sheep farm and you are making cheese with your milk, we would love to hear from you.
It is estimated that there are only around 100 sheep dairy farms in the US. (One of them is Cordero Farms in Oklahoma. They have a great blog called “Who’s Your Farmer?” and they were kind enough to let us use their pictures here). You may not even realize many of the cheeses you eat regularly are traditionally made with sheep milk:
Caciotta
Cabrales
Feta
Dunlop
Halloumi
Manchego
Mizithra
Pecorino Romano
Pepato
Ricotta
Roguefort
Wensleydale
There are many advantages to making cheese with sheep milk:
1. Sheep milk can be frozen until enough is accumulated to make cheese. This is because, unlike cow and goat milk, the smaller fat and protein particles do not separate when defrosting. (Note: the ideal temperature for freezing is -17F or lower.)
2. Sheep milk has more solids in it than cow and goat milk. In fact, up to 2 and 1/2 times as much cheese can be made from one gallon of sheep milk than from other milks. It is so thick that yogurt made with sheep milk does not require any firming agents (which raise the lactose level in other yogurts).
Composition of different kinds of milk
|
|||||
Species |
% solids
|
% Fat
|
% protein
|
calcium (mg)
|
calories (kcal)
|
Human |
12.5
|
4.38
|
1.03
|
32
|
70
|
Cow |
12.01
|
3.34
|
3.29
|
119
|
69
|
Goat |
12.97
|
4.14
|
3.56
|
134
|
69
|
Sheep |
19.30
|
7.0
|
5.98
|
193
|
108
|
3. Because sheep milk is loaded with more fat, protein, and vitamins, it tastes sweeter than other milk. Sheep milk is highly nutritious, richer in vitamins A, B, and E, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium than cow’s milk.
4. Many people who can’t eat cow or goat milk cheese, can eat sheep milk because the smaller fat globules are more easily digested. According to recent studies*, sheep milk has more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than the milk from pigs, horses, goats, cattle, and humans. CLA is a cancer-fighting, fat-reducing fat.
* This comes by permission, from a great website, Sheep 101.
These are some possible disadvantages:
1. If you are buying your sheep milk, it is usually expensive and the season is shorter.
2. Because the milk is so loaded with good bacteria, it needs to be either frozen or made into cheese very soon after milking, because it spoils rapidly.
3. When you are using sheep milk, you are usually using milk from ewes that are in the same stage of lactation. Therefore the variations between early and late stage lactation are much more apparent; the milk from early lactation coagulates much faster than the milk from late lactation.
Therefore, you need to pay much more attention to the amount of rennet you are using in your recipes. During early lactation, you may need to decrease it by as much as 5 times the amount designated in recipes such as ours.
As we said, we do not claim to be experts on the use of sheep milk. So, we would welcome any information you might share with us about your experience with it. Write to us at info@cheesemaking.com.
Faraday Farm says
I have East Fresian sheep (10 ewes, 5 to milk this spring) and this will be my 3rd milking season. I get plenty of milk, about 2 qts per girl per day. I definatly see a decline after about a month of milking because they start at about 3 qts a day. I hand milk from behind on a milking stand that we built from plans for a goat stand. I didn’t see anyone mention that you have to “punch” their udder first. That sounds terrible but I lightly pop the udder with the back of my hand 3 or 4 times to help them “let down” their milk. I am not nearly as rough as the lambs are! Sheep do not have an empty storage area for their milk so they can be quite full but still seem to be empty. Also the first little bit of milk can be pretty tricky if they are very full because of the size and shape of their teats. Once you have released a little milk it gets much easier. Lastly, my girls shed the fiber on their udders when they begin to bag up so I can clearly see and feel their udders.
Now then, I do not have any answers for cheese making. I have made 8 batches to date and other than one that got scorched they have all tasted pretty good and much like what I expected. They have all been very grainy though and none of them seem like they would melt well. I just made a cows milk cheese from homogenized milk and am not sure what it’s texture will be? I am guessing that my problem is impatience. I have a hard time getting the milk to raise x degrees in x minutes. Is there any other consistent mistake that would lead to bad texture? Is the texture possibly a result of sheep’s milk used in a cows milk recipe?
Jeri Case says
Thank you for the great info about sheep! Now, we need to get you to where you’re making fabulous cheese. I suspect you are right on the verge of doing it. Our technical advisor, Jim Wallace, will need a little more info from you about what kind of cheese you are making, etc., but he will definitely be able to help you. He prefers that you contact him directly at info@cheesemaking.com. Meanwhile, you’re in an enviable position because you can freeze sheep’s milk until you have enough for cheese and it will perform as well as fresh. It’s perfect milk for cheese, so have fun!
Do you know the brand names of cheeses that use Sheeps milk. My son has allergies but loves cheese. I hope he can tolerate Sheeps milk.
Thanks
Laura,
Thanks for the information. That certainly is a disadvantage.
Traditionally, sheep are only milked for about 6 months. That way, their bodies can recover so they're ready to breed and start the process over again. They shouldn't be milked for almost a year like a cow or even a goat. They're just not made that way!
I am milking a few Icelandic ewes. I find that the Chevre(DS)-5pack C20G makes lovely cheese that is somewhere between crumbly and creamy when hung. I add some spices and work them in gently by hand. I have about 3/4 inch of cream at the top of each jar, so I have to gently stir that in. It's just so sweet and yummy with no after taste. I use and Udderly Ez hand milker because those teats are so tiny. This milker also keeps hair and other things out of the milk.
http://www.udderlyez.com/sheep_milkers.php
I hope to try some other types of cheese, too.
Thanks for your comment. I'm always looking for recipes modified for sheep's milk for our blog, so if you ever have time to write one up (and take a few pics) let me know- jeri1000@gmail.com.
I am on my third year of milking my sheep and yes, you can milk for a good while on a ewe, and I have been making yogurt and cheese's from the milk.
I will admit that there does appear to be a learning curve on adjusting the recipes for goat or cow milk to the sheep milk.
Nathan,
Thanks for your comment. I can put your question in the Moosletter if you care to be a little more specific about what you're asking. Are you responding to Aziza's comment? You can contact me at moosletter@cheesemaking.com.
Anyone having success with prolonged milk production milking sheep by hand? Any tricks you can share?
MY sheep milk a long time after weaning lambs. last year, i had a hard time drying up some of my girls. I have Saanen goats too. Some of my Dairy sheep outlasted the goats. We’re on our 6th generation of lambs. They get better every year. We’re keeping the genetics for longevity of lactation but also, ease in hand milking- larger longer teats and larger orifices as well as good attachment- some sheep get stretched out when producing large amounts of milk. This year is the first season we’ve introduced a Tunis line into our East Fresians. This one line of Tunis had just what we were looking to add to our line with the exception of volume of milk- although, this Tunis line did have much more milk than the average Tunis.Our first cross is a very strong FF! We sell Dairy sheep, sheep milk (can ship it), have a licensed Dairy and cheesery as well as a Farm store. We’ve started 18 new producers in 5 states, we mentor, have classes and a very popular 4H Dairy sheep and Goat club of over 80 kids!
my website is http://www.wpstables.com, my email is dairysheepdeb@gmail.com
Yea anyone out there having success with prolonged milk production and milking sheep by hand?
Aziza,
Thanks for the first hand info. That's very interesting about the "milking out" problem. I hope one of our readers has some suggestions for you. Meanwhile, can I come over for coffee and cereal some morning?!!
next year we hope to be making sheep cheese. i've got a few dairy sheep and when we've got sheep milk, somehow there's never enough left after coffee to make cheese with… it is *the* milk for your morning coffee and cereal.
we've had some difficulty keeping our sheep in milk after weaning, in part because they're difficult to hand-milk out. if they're not milked completely out, they shut down production rather quickly (unlike our goats.) we bought a milking machine (too late for this season) and we'll use that next year… should be a big help in keeping them milked out and in production for a reasonable length of time.
looking forward to following this thread for many ideas…