How to freeze milk and other types of dairy to best protect nutritional value and the types of containers that are best for preserving taste and texture.
I’ve coordinated a large buying club that supports several local dairy farms for nearly two decades. During that time, I’ve answered all manner of questions on freezing milk and proper use, storage, and fermentation of dairy products both pasteurized and fresh from the cow (or goat).
It’s exciting to witness an ever-increasing number of people seeking to source food locally. We now even have a local farm in our community that produces a small amount of fresh milk from water buffalo!
The tricky part of the trend toward local food production is that a learning curve and education process are necessary with regard to knowing exactly where your food comes from and how it is produced.
This is something that is entirely unnecessary when you robotically buy dead, fractionated, frankenfoods on a grab-and-go basis from the dairy aisle of the supermarket.
Below are the most common questions I have been asked over the years about how to properly handle and store milk and other dairy products. If you are new to sourcing your dairy from a local farm, I hope this information saves you some time getting up to speed on the process.
Does Freezing Milk Damage It?
The most frequent question I get asked about milk is can it be frozen? The reason people are interested in freezing milk is because, in some parts of the world, fresh dairy is hard to come by, so folks are organizing groups to drive long distances to pick up larger quantities once a month for multiple families.
The trick with that is how to best keep the milk fresh for drinking until the next dairy road trip.
The good news is most definitely yes! You can freeze milk with no problem.
Both pasteurized and raw milk can be frozen, and freezing milk does not harm its nutritional profile or destroy enzymes and probiotics in the case of raw dairy.
Dr. Weston A. Price, author of the nutritional classic Nutrition and Physical Degeneration found that even after being frozen for one year, butter suffered no degradation in either enzymes or fat-soluble vitamins. (1)
Types of Containers
The trickiest part about freezing milk, cream, butter, buttermilk, yogurt, or kefir is choosing the most appropriate container to use.
Plastic vs Glass
I personally do not choose and would not recommend glass for freezing milk and other types of dairy due to the danger of breakage.
If you must use glass for whatever reason, make sure the container is not completely full and the lid is cracked or open to release any pressure that builds up.
The linked article provides more tips on choosing and using glass versus plastic containers for safely freezing food.
Shake it up Before Freezing
When freezing raw milk or nonhomogenized, low-temp pasteurized milk, be sure to shake it up really well first before putting it in the freezer.
This distributes the cream evenly. It’s a good idea to take the jug out and shake it up once or twice more before it is totally frozen for the same reason.
How to Thaw
Note that once cream top milk has thawed, sometimes the cream will have a slight texture to it and might not feel completely smooth on the tongue like it did before it was frozen.
You will be happy to know that this little bit of grittiness with the cream portion of thawed milk isn’t a safety or nutritional problem, but it does bother some people.
Knowing how to properly freeze milk and other fresh from the farm dairy products is also helpful when traveling. This article details how to easily travel with dairy on an airplane.
Other Tips for Handling Local Dairy
While the question of freezing milk is definitely the most common question I receive as a dairy club coordinator, the second most common concern usually takes the form of a frantic email or text late in the afternoon or evening of dairy pickup day:
Sarah, I completely forgot about my raw dairy in the trunk of my car, and it has been sitting in there all day! Has it gone bad or can I use it anyway?
How to Know if it’s “Gone Bad”
Quality raw, grassfed dairy is expensive, and forgetting about it in the trunk of your car all day long is surely a heart-stopping event! The good news is that the raw dairy hasn’t gone “bad” sitting in your car even on a hot day.
Milk going “bad” is a concept that has evolved in our language as a result of the rise of pasteurization and sterilized factory food.
Only dead, pasteurized milk that is devoid of enzymes and probiotics goes putrid or “bad” and must be thrown out as a precautionary measure when it has not been fully refrigerated for a period of time.
Note that throughout most of human history, raw milk and dairy were never refrigerated and rarely consumed fresh.
Milk was usually clabbered or fermented in some way before consumption. (2)
Raw milk has the benefit of inherent probiotic cultures that not only protect it from an invasion of foodborne pathogens but also protect against spoilage.
When raw milk comes to room temperature, the activity of these beneficial probiotics in the raw milk increases, as they more rapidly consume the lactose (milk sugar) during this time hastening the process of transforming the fresh milk to a clabbered state.
Hence, if you’ve left your raw milk in your car for a while, you can safely re-refrigerate when you get home and use it as you would normally.
Shortened Shelf Life
The only catch is that the raw milk won’t be fresh for drinking for as long. For example, if your raw milk normally stays fresh tasting for drinking for two weeks in the refrigerator before naturally souring, then it might only last one week or a few days if you forgot to refrigerate it right away after dairy pickup.
In comparison, when pasteurized milk goes past the “use by” date stamped on the carton, it should be immediately discarded as the risk of foodborne pathogens from the putrid milk is high.
No Longer Fresh for Drinking?
When raw milk is no longer fresh for drinking, on the other hand, it has simply begun the process of naturally souring into clabbered milk, a drinkable yogurt-like product which is how humans usually consumed raw milk prior to the advent of modern refrigeration.
When raw milk has clabbered, you don’t throw it out. You simply use it for something else like scrambled eggs, puddings, or sauces. This article outlines the many ways to use soured raw milk.
Do you have a question or answer about freezing milk or the handling of fresh dairy you source from a local farm? Please share in the comment section.
This post was so timely for me! I had just discovered my missing homemade raw goat kefir in the freezer! Must have been sleep deprived cleaning up the kitchen one morning and put it there by mistake. 😉 Good to know it was ok. I used it up in my smoothies. Thanks for all your great posts!
Can I freeze Almond milk – purchased from supermarket ?
I wouldn’t recommend almond milk from the store. Here’s why: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/coconut-and-almond-milk-in-cartons-not-a-healthy-buy/
It is very easy to make your own: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/fermented-homemade-almond-milk/
Thanks for this article… had not even considered freezing raw milk.
We freeze in glass all the time here successfully — I don’t think we have ever had a problem, *after* an initial learning curve during which we did lose a few jars. If I had known the following guidelines, those early mistakes would have been avoided.
Whether or not a jar is freezer safe depends a little but on the quality and age of the glass container but *mostly* on the shape. When the liquid expands during freezing, if it encounters any narrowing then the container will probably crack. Conversely, if there is no narrowing during this upward expansion problems are quite unlikely. So a straight sided container works — even if the bottom gently curves a bit, it doesn’t matter, it only matters that the liquid can expand upward. Of course, if your liquid hits the tightly screwed on lid of a jar when expanding it will crack the jar regardless.
Commercial canning jars take all the guesswork out of this, because they label their products that are straight-sided all the way up as “freezer safe” and they put a fill line on the jar, to take the guess work out of how much room you need to allow for expansion. So for example Ball lists which jars are freezer safe in this chart — freshpreserving.com/tools/jar-selector
But in my experience you can safely use jars they don’t mark as freezer safe — like the regular-mouth pint jars, which narrow on top, as long as you leave enough room for expansion so that the frozen liquid won’t hit the ‘neck’ of the jar at all.
The good news is that if you make a mistake, it’s very easy to clean up. And I would imagine that once in a blue moon you will have an older jar crack, it’s not like your freezer is going to be contaminated or anything.
This is so true! The straight sided jars also have the advantage of taking up less space. I especially like the wide mouth 24 oz 1 1/2 pint jars. I also freeze tomato sauce and broth in them. If I have especially gelatinous broth though (good problem to have), I put less in them, as they tend to form “mountains” and seems like that might break the glass. And as extra insurance, I put the jars in the fridge first to make sure everything is cool to start, and do not tighten the jars all the way until they are fully frozen. (Don’t know if those steps make a difference, but I have a great success rate.) Nowadays I only break jars when defrosting them – if I’m too impatient and put them in a bowl of water that is too hot.
I have had goats for years and have never been able to freeze the milk with any success it always separates I’ve tried thawing it in the fridge, on the bench in a bucket of cold water dose any one have any ideas I would love to be able to freeze it for the off sesson when my girls are not milking,
Thanks for the great post. I’ve been wondering about freezing my Raw dairy. Coincidentally, the local farm I buy from in Lancaster, Pa also started selling Water Buffalo milk. Delicious!
A gal on the blog FB page just posted that she uses an immersion blender to quickly blend in the cream into the milk before freezing. Great tip!
I have been trying to ask WAP FB page about a claim by Dr Carney (drcarney.com) that Lacto-fermented foods linked to Esophogeal cancer in a meta-data study 2009 – can you please help as we eat our goat’s milk as a keffir soft cheese nearly 5 days each week.
Given that traditional cultures that consumed lacto-fermented foods did not suffer from esophageal cancer (it is a modern epidemic from chronic acid reflux primarily), I am not too worried about it. But, I will see what I can find out for you.
Great article! We always buy frozen raw butter (grass-fed of course) in bulk and sometimes it takes us several months to consume all of it so it’s very nice to know that butter keeps up to a year in the freezer!! I do have a question though: I usually buy (frozen) raw cream from pastured Geurnsey cows (A2) from a local farmer here in the Netherlands, how long can I keep it frozen before the product goes “bad”? I tend not to buy this in bulk as I’m afraid it won’t keep as long in the freezer as butter will but the farmer usually only offers cream once a year. I know I could scoop off the top of the milk (which would give me the exact same product), but I use such a large amount of cream in everything (I’m crazy in love with it) that this would require me to buy a humongous amount of milk that the two of us wouldn’t be able to finish it all (even if we would ferment it). Thanks in advance!
I used to freeze some, but it always left a weird film in my mouth after drinking it. What I have found that works well is dividing the jug into different jars (I have old glass milk bottles from organic milk) and fill them up so there isn’t much air space. I keep them in the coldest part of my refrigerator and they will last at least a month.
I don’t freeze milk either as I am fortunate to get a fresh delivery every week. In the old days though (14 years ago), I had to freeze it as I only got a shipment once a month.
Sarah and all Readers,
instead of asking if it is ok to freeze dairy, the question should be if it is ok to consume cow’s milk?? Sarah, I already know that question will no be seen by the readers, so I guess it is directly for you. And please, do not hide behind Dr. weston price. Just think for yourself.
Here are the facts:
1. cow milk is forced in our diet!!!!. farmers, artificially impregnate cows. Just think about it, if humans would not interfere with nature cows would only offer milk to their newly born.
2. we humans are the only spices on this planet to use another spices milk. there is no more crossing throughout the whole NATURE.
3. No other animal on this planet except humans consume milk throughout their lives. WHY WE ARE SO SPECIAL
4. milk is considered a transitional food, when a young one of any spices did not develop yet fully operational digestive system to be able to process solid food. WORKS THAT WAY THROUGHOUT THE NATURE.
5.if you tell me about calcium , I will ask you where the cow is getting her calcium?of course plants. So why would we humans try to get calcium from milk, if milk is harder to break down for our digestive system than plants. AND PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT EVOLUTION ALWAYS DEVELOPS SURVIVAL SKILLS FOR SPECIFIC SPICES IN MOST EFFICIENT WAY.
6. now think this, a cow grows into adult size in 1 YEAR and we humans in 12-15 years. Do you think, cows milk has safe level of natural growth hormone for humans. We grow slowly,comparing to cow, and if you compare amount of growth hormone in human breast milk and cow milk, you start understanding issues with very young girls with fully developed breast, number of cancer growing in human body out of any control. Looks like even our immune system can’t withstand massive amount of growth hormone from another spices reaching adult size 15 times faster.
and 7. good bacteria for our guts can grow in other media then milk , it can be pre-fermented food,veggies, fruits, even tea of sweetened water .
please let me know what you think, if you can come up with logical explanations for my points, or even better let people read it and discuss it
Tom
Tom, you are free to skip drinking milk if you like. I will stick with history .. dairy nourished humans for thousands of years PRIOR to the advent of agriculture. Best to bone up on history rather than fall for politically correct food fads.
https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/why-milk-matters-and-why-its-not-just-for-baby-cows/
Hi Sarah!
Was wondering how much you recommend to drink? Every day? How many ounces or cups in general? … I’m trying to heal my daughters eczema through the use of raw milk. I have read in another one of your articles about eczema that raw milk has helped to heal eczema. My daughter is 15 months. I just want to make sure she’s getting enough to make a difference.
Thanks for the great article!
Hi Jackie, for very young ones…ages 1 to about 3, I gave my kids no more than 2 cups per day as a general rule of thumb in order to ensure they were getting sufficient solid foods. For adolescents, 2-3 cups max and for our teenagers, I didn’t really measure anymore as they were eating great otherwise (at least when they were at home!).
Obviously, if a child has a health issue of some kind, more or less may be warranted which is why it’s a good idea to discuss your plan with a functional physician who can examine the whole picture and medical history first.
Hope that helps.