Oct 30, 2011

Freeze Milk and Cut Cost, Thaw it Properly

Guest Writer: Ruth Morse

The cheapest way to buy milk is by the gallon. Why is a gallon of milk $2.59 and a half gallon is $1.87? So I buy the gallon, but there is no way we can use up a whole gallon of milk before it starts to get that quirky chunky consistency. Bleecccchhhh!

However, you can freeze milk! Didn’t know that, did ya? I bought several of these super sturdy Rubbermaid containers to do just that. 


These bottles are very thick and won’t get brittle in the freezer. Coming from these, the thawed milk tastes great. There’s the catch however: thawing the milk......

You’d be amazed at how LONG it takes for a bottle of milk to thaw. Ideally, it should be thawed in the fridge.

How long will it take to thaw? A whole lot longer than you think! If you will need milk on, say, Thursday, start thawing on Monday. The bottle will look thawed quicker than that, but that’s just the outer edges. Takes forever for the whole thing to turn back to liquid! .By the way, it’s a good idea to put the bottle in a shallow bowl to catch all the condensation while thawing. When thawed, give the bottle a good shake and you’re good to go.

So plan ahead.
Plan WAY ahead.

I don’t recommend thawing milk on the counter. The fact that I have a bottle sitting on my counter this very minute is none of your business!

One more thing! Be sure to leave lots and lots of headroom in the bottle before freezing. Frozen liquids e-x-p-a-n-d and even if your container is a good quality one like these bottles, the lid can be forced open, even ever so slightly. And then what? Frozen milk puddles in your freezer, and ain’t that fun? And since the only freezer we have is the small one over the fridge, I have to lay the bottles down to freeze. Yike!

Which leads to picture #2:

Yup, I wrap the bottle in one of my handy dandy saved bread bags before I freeze it. If anything should ooze out in the freezing process, the mess is contained. Neat, huh? Looks extremely dumb but I sure hate cleaning up frozen milk puddles.

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...and one more thing......
uh, I'll get back to you when I remember it.
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The Cheap Senior Citizen is a Guest Writer who occasionally shares helpful hints she has learned through her experience.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Helpful information Guest Writer especially for older people who don't drink it as fast BUT why am I paying a dollar more for milk than you?!!