Post by anthonyg on Jan 23, 2017 13:28:13 GMT -5
Greetings. I am somewhat new to this forum and have found it enormously helpful, however, after some searching, I have not found an adequate answer to some questions I have.
It seems to me the most convenient, readily available, and inexpensive container for milk are 2-quart wide-mouth Ball jars.
I was planning on chilling my milk in a chest freezer converted to refrigerator temp (33-40 degrees F) with an aftermarket thermocouple thermostat.
I would like to put these jars inside a convenient, readily available, and inexpensive crate that will also fit well into typical chest freezers (I was going with a 7.1 cu ft Haier from Sam's club).
But I cannot find anything that works well. The traditional milk crate size seems to be for the old-fashioned heavy-glass quart milk jars. Plastic milk crates are at Rural King. It does not fit the half gallon jars well at all, you can only get five in there and they rattle around and there is a bunch of wasted space. Only two one gallon Ball jars fit, which is even worse. Quart jars fit well (9 of them) but they are too short and waste a bunch of space. Also one quart is too small and you have to move your strainer-funnel when it has milk in the top.
Since the small strainers seem to be for wide-mouthed jars, we are kind of stuck. I was thinking of making some milk crates that would fit four half-gallon jars perfectly, but if I could save myself that hassle, I would really like it.
Anybody find a good system for this? We plan on sharing milk with neighbors and friends and so want some kind of crate to keep the milk jars in so they don't break in the car.
It seems to me the most convenient, readily available, and inexpensive container for milk are 2-quart wide-mouth Ball jars.
I was planning on chilling my milk in a chest freezer converted to refrigerator temp (33-40 degrees F) with an aftermarket thermocouple thermostat.
I would like to put these jars inside a convenient, readily available, and inexpensive crate that will also fit well into typical chest freezers (I was going with a 7.1 cu ft Haier from Sam's club).
But I cannot find anything that works well. The traditional milk crate size seems to be for the old-fashioned heavy-glass quart milk jars. Plastic milk crates are at Rural King. It does not fit the half gallon jars well at all, you can only get five in there and they rattle around and there is a bunch of wasted space. Only two one gallon Ball jars fit, which is even worse. Quart jars fit well (9 of them) but they are too short and waste a bunch of space. Also one quart is too small and you have to move your strainer-funnel when it has milk in the top.
Since the small strainers seem to be for wide-mouthed jars, we are kind of stuck. I was thinking of making some milk crates that would fit four half-gallon jars perfectly, but if I could save myself that hassle, I would really like it.
Anybody find a good system for this? We plan on sharing milk with neighbors and friends and so want some kind of crate to keep the milk jars in so they don't break in the car.