We get around 4 gallons of milk per day from our Jersey cow. For our family, this is plenty to make cheese, butter, kefir, ice cream and more — plus we have some to share with friends AND some to clabber (spontaneously sour) for the chickens and dog. I figured out a really easy way to get both clabber for the chickens and sour cream for us, with hardly any work at all. This week’s free video shows you how I do it.
Easy Sour Cream: The Print Version
Here’s the quick run-down if you can’t or don’t want to watch a video. 
Any time I’m going to clabber milk for the dog or chickens, I start it right after milking, when the milk is warm and the perfect temperature for culturing. I cover the jar of milk with a paper towel or cloth napkin and rubber band, then leave it to clabber (sour spontaneously) at room temperature for 1 to 2 days, or more in the winter when it is cooler.
(You can’t clabber pasteurized milk because it lacks naturally present organisms — though you can simulate clabber by adding a mesophilic cheese culture.)
After 1 to 2 to 3 days, both the cream and the milk are thickened from the acids produced by the proliferating organisms, and the cream has conveniently risen to the top. I skim off the cream for us and chill it until we need it. I take the clabbered milk to the animals. Voila — done! With hardly any effort at all. Except for milking the cow of course. 
How did I used to do this? It was easy, too, but not quite so effortless. I used to refrigerate the milk, let the cream rise, skim off the cream, and let both the cream and milk sour separately. My new way allows me to skip the fridge stage entirely (saving about a day) and the cream and milk sour together (saving multiple containers and additional counter space). I love it! Hardly any work at all — which you’ll see in the video.
By the way, you don’t need to milk your own cow to try this. If you have an abundance of raw milk from a friend or co-op, just bring the chilled milk out of the fridge and let the milk and cream sour together before skimming the cream. If not time, you’ll be saving counter space and containers!
What do you think? Are you game to try this? Do you think it would help you?
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About Wardee Harmon
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I tried this one time (saw it someplace else), and it all ended up tasting like stinky feet… I don’t have a cow, so I started with refrigerated raw milk from a local Grade A for raw dairy. Any ideas what went wrong?
Alice — Clabber isn’t predictable. The best results come from totally fresh raw milk. Yours may not have been fresh and competing organisms affected the flavor.
I get raw milk from a local farm and would love to make our own sour cream, but I don’t want to ‘waste’ the soured milk on my chickens or cats (if the cats would even have it.)
What else could I use the skimmed sour milk for? Being skimmed, I don’t think I’d want to use it for yogurt. What about as a substitute for buttermilk in recipes like pancakes?
Julie — Baking is a great use for skimmed sour milk. Or anywhere you see yogurt or kefir called for. You can add it to smoothies or salad dressings, which would be good actually because you can add coconut oil or some fat to make up for it being skimmed.
I discovered this the first time I tried clabbering whole milk. I had a half-gallon jar almost full, with a mason lid just resting on top (not screwed down). The cream made a thick plug (with lots of bubbles in it) and lifted the lid right off by about 2 inches!
Elizabeth — That is SO funny!
What a surprise that must have been!
How long is spontaneously soured cream generally good in your opinion? I have some cream that got a little lost in my fridge for a while:) It seems fine to me but then I am second guessing myself because I know it has been a loooong time!
Angelia — It is probably still good. You can trust yourself on that. Anyway, if it had some mold at the top, you can usually skim that off and still use what’s beneath.
You mentioned filtering the milk when you bring it in. How do you do that?
Kara — I put a gold coffee filter in a wide mouth funnel and set that on top of my jars. I pour the just-milked milk through that setup into the jars.
I wish I could do that with goat’s milk but after that amount of time the milk is very goaty. I am really thinking about getting a cow next year. I will still keep my goats for my daughters 4H but I sure would like cow’s milk again. Thanks for sharing
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Mona — Goat’s milk won’t really separate like this, at least not in 1 to 2 days. But you might get a little layer of cream at the top.
Wardee, I have been working through your cultured dairy e-course for a while now and I had so much fun. But only just recently was I able to get raw milk. So my question, after the milk and/or cream is soured or clabbered, when does it really get bad, or is bad for you?
Barbara — It doesn’t really get bad. It gets strong, and too strong for most people. At the top surface there may be mold growing. You can skim that away and usually underneath is fine.
Souring is a continual process. Over time, the dairy sours more. Occasionally, you’ll have spoiling, but usually people don’t like it rather than it has gone bad.
I’m just working through your eCourses at the moment, hope i’m not repeating something you already mentioned somewhere.
Clabbered milk is used in Germany to make a traditional milk product called Quark. Thats how its traditionally done, without any added cultures: After skimming off the cream, just leave the fresh milk in a clean covered jar to ferment on the counter(1-3 days)( your clabbered milk), once it’s thick, pour it into a cheese cloth and hang it to drip dry over night in the fridge. Stir it well to make it smooth and silky, then fill it in clean jars.
The aimed for consistency is thick, but not dry like cream cheese. It’s much milder than Kefir cheese and offers itself for many uses.
We make Herb quark, mix in chopped fresh herbs with pepper and salt, serve it with cooked potatoes or rice- very tasty( or use dry herb salt)! Or we just spread it on our bread with honey, or served with mashed bananas and honey is very nice too as a desert for the kids. Or use it in a recipe for baked cheese cake.
Thanks for sharing all your knowledge Wardee!
Nina — Thank you for sharing about Quark! I love hearing stuff like this, especially when it is a personal experience.
yeah i do the same as nina does and i make it into cheese.and i use it as cheese that i spread on toast or chappatis(whear flour breads) or i use it with herbs.
Okay, I have some milk in my fridge that is just over a week old. It’s too sour to drink at this point (I tried) but I don’t want to waste it. Would this still work out okay if I skimmed the cream off…? I’m wanting probiotic sour cream to make ranch dip. Or, since it’s already souring some, would it not taste so good? I have not made my own sour cream before and I am not a huge fan of cultured dairy products as it is. But since my son and I have decided to start eating ranch dip with veggies I wanted to make my own so we could have good probiotics in it. Any thoughts on this? Worth a shot?
Kate — Yes, you can. Just skim it off and that’s your sour cream. The only thing is whether you like the flavor or not. If you don’t, it still might work in dressing w/ the other ingredients to mask it. Or you might love it!
As I mentioned in a previous comment, clabber is unpredictable and it is best when you start with fresh milk. BUT, I have often used sour cream from older milk and we like it.
I am new to this working with raw milk. I let 3/4 a gallon sit on a open shelf for 1 week as my house is usually around 65 degrees. Only in the evenings do we reach 70 degrees. When I took my milk off the shelf, it had separated into milk on bottom, whey in the middle, cream on top. It did have alittle mold in one spot so I removed it before I worked with the milk. I removed the cream on top and put it in a dish. Then I ladled out as much as possible. (I had this in a gallon jar.) Then I ladled out the milk that was also thick, into a linen dish towel in a bowl. I let the cream and milk in separate bowl drain. That gave me additional whey. My question is what is the remainder milk/cream product called, and what can I do with it???
Hello. I am new to using raw milk. If I want to drink the skimmed milk should I let it sit in the fridge to seperate and then skim the top for sour cream or butter and then just keep the milk for drinking?
Yes, you can do that.
In the video above, I let the milk and cream sour together, then skim off the cream. However, this means the milk is soured, too. If you want to keep the milk for drinking, you’d skim cream beforehand.
I buy a gallon raw milk from a nutrition store. Once I get it home it only stays sweet for a few days before it starts to sour. There are times that I haven’t had chance to finish it and (because I heard raw milk never goes bad) it has sat in the fridge for many, many weeks in a glass ball jar. It smells and tastes so sour that I’m sort of afraid to use it. Is it really ok? Does it matter if the milk has soured naturally on the counter or soured in the fridge? When is it TOO bad to consume?