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An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

atlasobscura.com

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Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#51
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, in that case, carry on. (I've often wondered what to do with whey leftover from yogurt or ricotta making at home.)

Isn't whey what Whey Protein Concentrate is made from? Highly sought after in bodybuilding/fitness circles.

> Whey Protein Concentrate

From the article:

> Large, corporate-owned creameries can afford the expensive equipment that converts whey into profitable products such as protein powder. But at his family-owned, 20-cow farmstand creamery, Koch and his wife simply fed their whey into the fields through a nutrient management system.

Smaller creameries lack the capital to buy equipment to create whey powder and even if they had it, few people would buy small-brand protein powder. It is also apparently not worth shipping & selling to companies with the equipment so it ends up as an expense to dispose of it.

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#53
post #8
post #4

I've been telling my friends for years, if you can successfully sell Vodka in today's market you can probably market any product. While there are "differences", they all basically have to be the same by law and you probably can't reliably identify a difference in a double blinded application. "(1) “Vodka” is neutral spirits so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be with…

I'm sorry but if you can take a shot of Karkov vodka and a shot of Stoli and not tell the difference there is something very broken with your taste buds - regardless of what the law says. That's ignoring the headache you're going to have after a night of drinking Karkov. Source: I was poor in college and had the misfortune of dancing with Karkov on more than one occasion. For those of you who have never had the misfo…

That's funny, I haven't heard of Karkov before, but where I'm from Stoli is bottom shelf so I thought it's one of the fancy brands. Guess not!

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#55
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but if you can take a shot of Karkov vodka and a shot of Stoli and not tell the difference there is something very broken with your taste buds - regardless of what the law says. That's ignoring the headache you're going to have after a night of drinking Karkov. Source: I was poor in college and had the misfortune of dancing with Karkov on more than one occasion. For those of you who have never had the misfo…

> That's ignoring the headache you're going to have after a night of drinking Karkov. typically from cutting the heads too shallow. ethanol's boiling point is 173ºF, where the alcohol that is giving you your headache is lower. cutting the heads (or lower evaporating alcohol) too shallow gives you more of that alcohol. now, as to taste, I disagree a little bit with the gp post in that enough complex sugars also make i…

Is there any way to "fix" cheaper vodkas by holding it at the proper temp for sufficiently long enough? Or are they beyond salvageable by that point in the process?

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#56
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's ignoring the headache you're going to have after a night of drinking Karkov. typically from cutting the heads too shallow. ethanol's boiling point is 173ºF, where the alcohol that is giving you your headache is lower. cutting the heads (or lower evaporating alcohol) too shallow gives you more of that alcohol. now, as to taste, I disagree a little bit with the gp post in that enough complex sugars also make i…

Is there any way to "fix" cheaper vodkas by holding it at the proper temp for sufficiently long enough? Or are they beyond salvageable by that point in the process?

I've done double blind vodka tastings and some of the cheaper vodkas come out on top. e.g. Barton's is as good as top-shelf (that were in the tasting)

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#57
post #53
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but if you can take a shot of Karkov vodka and a shot of Stoli and not tell the difference there is something very broken with your taste buds - regardless of what the law says. That's ignoring the headache you're going to have after a night of drinking Karkov. Source: I was poor in college and had the misfortune of dancing with Karkov on more than one occasion. For those of you who have never had the misfo…

That's funny, I haven't heard of Karkov before, but where I'm from Stoli is bottom shelf so I thought it's one of the fancy brands. Guess not!

Yep, Stoli is definitely a bottom-tier vodka (not in price, though)

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having made this, a word of warning... it's a lot of work. It's been a number of years ago now, but I recall it being hours of constant stiring under low heat so that the cheese doesn't scorch but you reach the expected consistency.

Maybe a good use for a slow cooker? Probably can delay the stirring to he very end. Or use an automatic pot stirrer.

You'd probably have the same issue with a slow cooker, as the walls still get pretty hot, but an immersion circulator should do the trick.

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#59
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way to "fix" cheaper vodkas by holding it at the proper temp for sufficiently long enough? Or are they beyond salvageable by that point in the process?

I've done double blind vodka tastings and some of the cheaper vodkas come out on top. e.g. Barton's is as good as top-shelf (that were in the tasting)

Anecdotally, I've found that vodkas made by smaller, local distilleries tend to be really good for the price. I'm assuming this is because vodka is generally not their core product, but they're making a pure, neutral spirit as a base for other things (e.g. gin) anyways, so they might as well bottle it and try to sell it. Since they're not spending excessive amounts of money trying to market their vodkas, they tend to be pretty cheap.

Re: An Oregon creamery making vodka from milk

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"typically from cutting the heads too shallow. ethanol's boiling point is 173ºF, where the alcohol that is giving you your headache is lower." Can you explain that a bit? I thought alcohol is ethanol. C2H6O. And headaches in bad stuff comes from bad distilling ethanol, so different (even dangerous) byproducts like methyl alcohol can be inside that make you feel bad.

> I thought alcohol is ethanol ethanol is an alcohol, but not all alcohol is ethanol. an apple is a pome, not all pome are apples. amyl (isobutyl carbinol: C5H12O) alcohol is also an alcohol, that has a boiling point of 131.6ºF - that means it comes in the heads (lower temperatures). methanol comes in at 148ºF. other alcohols come in the tails, but typically have more of an oily texture to them.

> an apple is a pome, not all pome are apples.

coming from a language where "pomme" is the translation of "apple"... wat ?

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