Yogurt Leather

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Chocolate Powdered Milks Review and Taste Test

Remember when we tasted the powdered milks?  Yeah, it seems like a long time ago.  Well, we also tasted two kinds of chocolate powdered milks--Honeyville and Morning Moos.  These are not like Nestle Quick or Ovaltine that you add to milk.  They are drinks (actually milk substitutes) that you add straight to water to get a chocolate milk.  Here they are all mixed up in the fridge--Honeyville is "R" and Morning Moos is "S":

The first was Honeyville Chocolate Milk Alternative.  Available from and donated by Honeyville Grain.  $12.99/can.  3 cups/gallon.  Approximately $3.39/gal.

We used the same rating scale for the chocolate milks as we did for the regular milks.  Taste was rated on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being great tasting.  There was also room for comments.  We mixed both chocolate milks into a small amount of warm water, then added cold water to make the total volume we were mixing.  Honeyville' Chocolate Milk Alternative scored an average of 3.93 with a range of 2-5.  The most common score given was 5.  If you are expecting Ovaltine (which I personally prefer over Quick) or the heavenly chocolate milk from the BYU creamery, this isn't it.  Yes, we had children who didn't like this chocolate milk--I'm guessing they were expecting it to taste like the chocolate milk they have at home.  Overall though, it had a very good chocolate flavor.  It was a little "thinner" than regular chocolate milk and needed re-mixed after sitting overnight.  Some thought the flavor was too strong and/or it was too sweet.  You could use less mix to dilute the flavor, but it would also dilute the creaminess of the drink.  One gal who works at the local restaurant said it reminded her of the chocolate ice cream mix for the soft serve machine before it's frozen.

The second chocolate milk mix was Morning Moos Chocolate Drink, available from and donated by Augason Farms.  $11.82/can, 3 cups/gallon, approximately $3.09/gallon.

The Morning Moos chocolate drink was a little lighter in color when it was mixed up than the Honeyville drink.  It looked a little more like regular chocolate milk.  The flavor was good, but the texture still wasn't like chocolate milk.  It scored an average of 3.43 on the taste score, with a range of 1-5 and the most common score split between 3 and 5.  This variety also needed re-mixing after sitting, and some of the kids didn't like it either, although mine had no problem drinking either of the chocolate milks.  We had some comments that it was very good and some that it was too sweet. 

It was also interesting to note that the Honeyville can said it would make 15 quarts and the Morning Moos can said it would make 20 quarts, but they both mixed 3 cups to a gallon and both cans had 5 lbs of powder in them.  I estimated you could get a little over 15 quarts (not quite 4 gallons) out of each can by using the recommended 3 cups of mix per gallon.

We actually found the way we liked either of these chocolate milk drinks best at our house was to mix half chocolate drink and half milk together.  Even a powdered milk worked.  It dulled the sweetness a little bit and added "milk" flavor and texture to it.  Mixed half and half like that made it taste more like drinking the chocolate milks that are mixed into milk.

Overall, either of these drinks would be recommended and nice to have for a little treat in your food storage that also provides a good amount of vitamin A, vitamin D, and calcium.  Thanks again to Honeyville Grain and Augason Farms for helping out with this experiment!

The Great Powdered Milk Taste Test and Review

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Waxing Cheese Update

Had to use some of the waxed cheese from storage the other day and thought I'd update the cheese waxing post.  Here's some thoughts on the waxing cheese experiment:

This was my first attempt at waxing cheese.  It worked pretty well.  To do it again, I'd skip the strings and just dip half the cheese block at a time.  The strings made it too easy for air to get in.  I might also get cheese wax if it were available somewhere (which it isn't around here, but I could probably order some).  Cheese wax has the advantage of being thicker and more flexible than parafin wax.  After waxing my cheese I put it carefully in a small box so it would not get bumped which could break the more brittle (but less expensive and more readily available) parafin wax I had coated it with.  I started with store brand mild cheddar cheese as I was told the cheese would age on the shelf.  Here is the same cheese earlier today (approx 1 year + 3 months spent waxed in the non-climate-controlled food room):

It is still edible and did not go moldy on me.  However, it aged more than a little.  This stuff is so sharp I about can't eat it.  If you like super sharp cheese, this is the way to get it.  I think the dog might get most of mine though.  The cheese had gotten drier and more crumbly and liquid separated and was inside the wax so when I cut the cheese open quite a bit of liquid came out.  You can kind of see the texture of the cheese in this next picture.

About 6 months ago I also purchased a block of Tillamook Colby cheese.  I'm not a cheese expert, but colby is pretty darn mild.  It was in the shrink wrap wrapper, so I put it right on the shelf as it was.  (Sorry I didn't get a picture of this before I opened it, I needed it for dinner the other night and didn't want to hunt down my camera).

It "expired" last September.

This block was only about 6 months from purchase (why I did not sharpie the date on it when I bought it I do not know) and had been in my uncooled food room since it came home with me.  The first thing I noticed was it had changed shape.  It used to be squarish on the ends and it settled into a squatty loaf.

The second thing I noticed was that instead of having the wrapping tight against the cheese, there was "air" in the package.  I'm assuming this was some kind of gasses released by the aging cheese because if it was air, the cheese would have molded long ago.  When I got it opened I noticed some minor separation of something on the side of the cheese, but overall the cheese was still a good texture and easy to slice and work with.

It was still quite sharp.  Not nearly as sharp as the year + old cheese, but borderline too sharp for just eating (at least for me).  I did use it for our homemade mac n cheese and it worked out fine.  I could taste the difference, but nobody else made any mention of it tasting bad (and believe me, my kids are not shy about telling me when they don't like something).  We'll eat the rest of this loaf.

So now the moral of the story.  Waxing cheese works.  Buying Tillamook shrinkwrapped cheese and storing it on a shelf works.  However, the cheese ages a lot faster than I thought it would.  I'd only reasonably store the cheese I would use within 4-6 months for better flavor.  Learning to make cheese would be a good thing.

The Difference Between Instant and Non-Instant or Regular Powdered Milk and a Question for my Readers

Make sure you get to the question at the bottom of this post even if you don't want to read about powdered milk :)

I had a comment on the powdered milk post about the difference between instant and non-instant powdered milk.  There are two basic kinds of powdered milks, instant and non-instant or "regular".  They are processed a little differently so the end products are not the same.

You can tell the difference in the texture.  I dropped a small spoonful of each on some dark paper so you could see the difference.  Non-instant on the left, Store Brand instant on the right.  Some instant powdered milks look more "flaky", this one's "grainy", but the non-instant is definitely "powdery".

Instant powdered milk dissolves faster in water than the non-instant which is why it is called "instant" powdered milk.  It can mix easily in cold water and you have milk relatively quickly.  Instant also tends to taste more like real milk.  It is usually more expensive than the non-instant (although not always), and easier to find.  It takes more instant milk powder than non-instant to make the same volume of milk.  (see chart below)  Instant powdered milk:

Non-instant powdered milk is available at the LDS Church's cannery and probably other places as well, I just haven't looked around for it because I get it at the cannery.  It is powdery and clumps easily.  It is best mixed into warm water with a blender or a whisk and then allowed to cool overnight in the refrigerator before drinking.  It does have a distinctive flavor to it that is not quite like real milk.  I normally use the non-instant milk because it is less expensive and I don't use it to make "milk", I use it in baking.  I do have a few cans of instant milk for making milk to drink that would taste better if I need to.  Non-instant powdered milk:

Here's a quick chart for reconstituting powdered milk so you can see the difference in amounts needed of instant and non-instant:

Milk Desired and Amount of Water	Instant Dry Milk	Non-Instant or Regular Dry Milk
1/4 C.	1 T.	3/4 T.
1/3 C.	1 1/2 T.	1 1/4 T.
1/2 C.	2 T.	1 1/2 T.
2/3 C.	3 T.	2 1/2 T.
1 C.	1/4 C.	3 T.
1 pint	1/2 C.	1/3 C.
1 quart	1 C.	3/4 C.
1/2 gallon	2 C.	1 1/2 C.
1 gallon	4 C.	3 C.

And now the question for you: Do you have powdered milk? If yes, what kind/brand and have you tasted it? If you have tasted it, did you like it?

Okay, I guess that could count as three questions . . . Let me know your answers in the comments. :)

Making Canned Milk Products from Powdered Milk

Back when I started storing food I stocked up on some canned milk products like evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.  I've found they don't store very long--the expiration date on the can is pretty much all they're good for and I don't use them often enough to rotate through them quick enough.  So check out my post over on Utah Preppers for some information on making evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk from powdered milk.  Powdered milk stores way longer than canned milks (I'm currently using powdered milk canned in 1998 and it's fine), so making it from powdered is the route I'll be taking from now on for my canned milk needs.

Wax Coated Cheese

Also check the Waxing Cheese Update posted 1/14/10 here.

Did you know you can store cheese in your food storage without a refrigerator or freezer? Well, you can--at least that's what I was told by a lady in the food storage know, so of course I had to test it for myself (remember the sprouted wheat and the butter?).

Here's the short version: You can coat cheese in wax (approx 4 layers) and store it on a shelf, or you can buy Tillamook cheese and just stick it on the shelf since it's already in airtight, vacuum packed packaging. Start with mild as the cheese will age on the shelf and become quite sharp.

Now, on with my experience. Sometime last fall before I started this blog, I got myself a 5 lb block of cheese and proceeded to coat chunks of it in parafin wax. I tied cotton string around it and dipped it in a can of melted wax, then used a clean paintbrush to touch up the spots that didn't cover as well with the dipping. It ended up something like this.So now about 3-4 months later a friend of mine who also had tried to wax cheese said she checked hers and it was all moldy, so I got my cheese box out and checked my cheese and 5 of my 12 pieces had minor molding. The other 7 looked great. The molding was all where the string came out of the wax at the top. Hmmmm. Obviously a trouble spot. Since the molding was very minimal, I opted to cut it off and re-wax those spots on the cheese and put it back in storage rather than toss the entire chunk of cheese. So I cut off the strings and cut off the moldy spot much deeper than the mold actually looked like it was.

Then, using my parafin wax double boiler setup and my wax-brush (so dubbed after I first used it for waxing the cheese) I proceeded to repaint wax over the open cheese. This is NOT junk wax like I'd use for the egg carton firestarters. This is good clean parafin wax right out of the box from the store--it's going on my FOOD, I want good wax. Put on at least 4 layers--nice and thick. You can re-use the wax when you use the cheese, so it's not a one time use type of thing.

In the future, I will cut off the strings when I'm done waxing the cheese and paint over the spots where the strings exited the wax a number of times to ensure a good seal. Or for the cost of less expensive cheese and wax and time involved, maybe I'll just wait for Tillamook cheese to go on sale and buy that instead . . .

Pretty quick fix anyway. I put the cheese back in the box and we'll check on it again in a few months. :)

Don't forget to click Comments and keep reading! :)

Bottled Butter Part 2

In case any of you missed my first experience bottling butter, check it out here before reading the rest of this post. I'll wait . . .

Okay, back now? So the two main problems with bottling butter were 1-not high enough temperature to kill botulism spores, and 2-jar lids did not seal completely even though they "popped" down.

Chef Tess commented that she pressure cans her butter, and in my half scientific opinion, that would theoretically solve both problems. It would definitely get the butter hotter (hot enough for any other food to be past the fear of botulism growing), and the lids would seal securely since it was heated so long in the canner. You can your butter using the same canning time and pressure as if you were canning meat (check your canner's instructions--I can my meat 55 mins at 12 lbs). Then proceed with the shake shake shake as it cools to avoid separation.

So I called my local extension agent who told me in effect that there is no research to show that pressure canning butter works. (Which also means there is no research to show it doesn't work.) She sent me to the FAQ section of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, but it only discusses the problems with the non-pressure-canned method. The major concern is the possible extent to which the fat in the butter could protect those nasty dangerous little botulism spores which may or may not be present to begin with from cooking to death during the canning process. She told me if I want to bottle butter in the pressure canner to do it at my own risk, but she wouldn't do it and for sure wouldn't do it using the non-pressure-canning method.

So there you have it. I'm not in any real hurry to bottle more butter (I usually just keep a bunch in the freezer), but if I wanted to, I would feel pretty safe using the pressure canning method. But just in case you die from botulism tainted bottled butter, I didn't recommend it. ;)

Oh yeah, of course click COMMENTS and keep reading!

Bottled Butter

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