How can I store milk for long periods of time?

Question

I'm in the process of setting up my overland vehicle so that it has "essentials" in it at all times. I've got a kettle and ways to boil the kettle etc.

I am interested in having the basics in my vehicle such as water, tea, coffee as well as military-style dehydrated food.

I was wondering if there is an option for keeping milk on a long term basis? I understand that I would need to keep it cool but even then surely it would only have a short shelf life. What other options are there in regards to milk?

I know that the obvious option would be to just buy milk when I need it but I want to be able to stop somewhere and have a cup of tea or coffee and not have to think about supplies.

Answer 1

One solution to your problem is UHT (ultra-high-temperature) milk. UHT milk has been treated at a high temperature to kill all bacteria, making it shelf-stable for at least 6 months. Once opened, however, UHT milk needs to be refrigerated just like normal milk.

If you're used to the taste of pasteurized/homogenized milk, UHT milk tastes a little different -- the heat treatment leaves it with a slightly sweet, almost caramel-like flavor. If you're mixing the milk with something else, like coffee or cereal, though, you're unlikely to notice the difference.

UHT milk is readily available at supermarkets in much of Europe -- one common brand is Parmalat -- but is less common in the US. One brand which might fit your needs nicely is Horizon Organic, which is distributed in 8 oz "juice boxes".

Answer 2

Couple of ways to do this,

• Powdered milk, has a shelf life of over a year and just needs water added to it.
• Evaporated milk, milk with over 60% of the water removed before being canned.
• Sweetened condensed milk, basically the same as the above just with lots of sugar added.

Powdered milk is the lightest and can be made in small batches while the others would start to spoil as soon as the can is opened.

Answer 3

Condensed milk tastes better with coffee than with tea.

Powdered milk, although it keeps once opened, isn't as easy to use as it should be. It goes lumpy very easily when you put it in a hot drink. One way to help is to let the drink cool a little, or add a little cold water (as milk might be) and sprinkle the powder into the surface, letting it dissolve before stirring. The trouble is though, steam from the drink can condense onto the spoon, so that the powder sticks to it. Another way is to mix it up first in a little cold water and then add the coffee or the teabag and hot water, but it can still go lumpy.

Another way is to use UHT milk in one-shot 10ml catering portions, buying a pack of say 120. They don't need refrigerating. But you have to dispose of the pot somehow, which might not be a problem if you have other waste to dispose of regularly.

Answer 4

Dry/powdered milk used to be much cheaper than liquid whole milk, since our family of 7 (5 kids, me in the middle) grew up on it, mixing it with liquid milk. I have used it sometimes since, and it is not hard to use, though in taste it is not as good as whole milk. But if you want to use it in hot drinks you need to reconstitute it first, though I find powered coffee creamer (mainly corn syrup solids) better for taste.

I used to work in a dairy and even though we had about 350 Holstein cows (which produce about 8 gals at day), we used lowheat dry milk, along with sugar and corn syrup solids to make delicious (fattening) 16% butterfat, 42% solids ice cream mix.

Some explanation of types and uses of dry milk.

This is about the best price online I have seen ($0.30/Ounce), but at about a buck a quart it it should be cheaper at brick and mortar stores.

Answer 5

I was wondering if there is an option for keeping milk on a long term basis?

• Good: UHT milk

• Better: UHT milk PLUS special handling.

UHT milk has been mentioned in a number of answers. It is an excellent solution but some extra precautions will produce even better results.

When sealed UHT milk has a very long 'shelf life'.
Once opened, if access to bacteria and other contaminants occurs, as will usually be the case, you have something close to 'ordinary milk and 'the clock starts to tick'.
If you are opening either small one-use sachets or using up a larger container in a day or two at most in unrefrigerated conditions, or can refigerate the opened product, then no special handling may be needed.

If you want to be able to extend the life of a say 1 litre container of UHT milk then keeping the interior sterile is essential. If environmental contaminants get into the container then lifetime will not be vastly better than for "ordinary" milk.

If you can obtain UHT packages with a well defined spigot/tap assembly this may be an adequate starting point. If not then it will be "relatively easy" to provide a tap system that you can attach to your UHT containers of choice. This may require piercing a box or bag or similar. Worst case you may need a custom tap assembly with box-piercer and a surface adhesion system plus sterile insertion procedure (see below). That may sound "a bit OTT"* - and whether it is depends on your circumstances.
That's the first step.

Once you have a resealable hard barrier from inside to 'world' you need a procedure that ensures that product flow is always outwards and that contaminated material cannot enter at the moment a tap is opened. A tap with a short exit tube is probably as good as you can achieve without substantial effort. Before opening, clean the exit tube interior (water good, very dilute sodium hypochlorite solution (bleach) better). A relatively diluet Sodium Hypochlorite solution (N drops of bleach per known volume of water) can be weak enough to not upset the taste but do a good job of discouraging contaminants.

Once cleaned, point the tube downwards, and dispense enough UHT milk for say the next day or so of use.
Then turn off the tap, wash and/or sterlise the exit tube, perhaps place a cap on the end and return to storage.

How effective this is depends very much on how one-way your tap barrier is and what greeblies are waiting at the tap to go against the flow when you open the tap. Whether the effort is worthwhile depends greatly on journey duration, access to new supplies
and, OF COURSE, how much you like to have milk in your tea :-).