You've heard cream rises to the top? :-)

The easiest way is to get a cooler or jar that has a pour spout at the bottom. Let the milk set undisturbed overnight than drain off the (now skim) milk. The fat percentage of the cream is going to be ~35%.

There's about a pint of cream in a gallon of milk. With raw milk it will vary depending on the cow and the cow's diet. With regular dairy milk, the dairy skims all the fat then adds it back in depending on the market demand for bottle milk. It sells the remaining cream separately to butter makers, ice cream makers, or retail it as whipping cream, Half and Half, etc.

Skim doesn't get any cream added back. 2% gets enough for 2%. Whole, by regulation, must have at least enough for 3.25% added back. It can vary slightly richer depending on the dairy. (BTW, my dairy mixes their whole milk to 3.5%.)

As an addendum, unless you are partial to raw milk, it is much cheaper to buy the cream straight. Let the skim milk and 2% drinkers subsidize your habit. ;-) Plus so much of the cost is bottling, handling, spoilage rates, imputed shelf space cost at the grocery, and mark-up, cream minimizes these overheads and you pay for just what you want.

Local to Portland, Oregon: Two half-gallons of quality, non-homo whole milk cost $8-9 (they don't sell it in gallons). A pint of cream from the same dairy at the same store costs $4. A quart of cream, if it is available -- not all groceries sell cream by the quart -- costs $5-6.

So, if cream is what you are after, a quart worth via whole milk will cost 3 times what the same amount of cream in a single bottle costs.

You don't actually "make" heavy cream from milk, but you separate cream from milk.

Different breeds of cattle have different amounts of cream in their milk, Jersey being one of the richest milks with the highest cream percentage.

There are actual machines to separate cream from milk, but most people simply let it separate on it's own (because it hasn't been 'homogenized') and scoop it off the top.

I purchased a "cow-share" in order to get raw milk. I pay $3 for a gallon of milk, actually cheaper than at the store. I provide my own glass gallon jugs and call ahead to let them know I'm coming, as long as it's before 10:30 am (that's when the truck picks up their milk). I then pour it off into quart measuring cups and let sit in the fridge overnight. The next morning I scoop off the cream and place in a separate pint Mason jar and make ice cream, butter, whatever I need. These are pastured cows and organic. I bought a half-gallon of organic milk from the store not so long ago and paid almost $5 for "organic" milk, that, to me, was NOT organic, i.e., ultra-pasteurized and homogenized. I was sorely disappointed. I looked up the percentages for making half and half (10.5% to 18%), heavy/whipping cream (35% to 40%) and whole milk (3.25% to 4%). I then do the calculations and add that amount of cream in ounces back into the now skim milk. It tastes EXACTLY as it should since I have drank a great amount of all of them over the years.

I just got my 1st gallon of raw milk & cant wait to try it

I was looking up how to 'make' heavy cream and found this thread. Now I just feel like a dummy to find out that the cream I skim off our raw milk IS heavy cream. lol

I also wanted to add just a wee tidbit to the discussion. We've kept a milk cow off and on for many years. I now have 7 children total, 6 living at home, and we find it much cheaper, not to mention, healthier to feed a cow and milk than to buy milk at the store. Anyhooo...if you get a cow for the first time or buy raw milk locally, always make sure you put your milk in the frig immediately and uncovered. If you've milked it yourself, strain and then put in frig. If you cover just-harvested milk and let it cool...it will taste like you licked the cow! The heat from the cow will condense in the milk giving it a horrible taste! So, cool...uncovered, then in the morning (or when it's cooled sufficiently) you can skim your cream. I make our own buttermilk, butter, cottage cheese and yogurt. And what we have extra we just give to family and friends. I hope y'all enjoy all the benefits of fresh, raw milk!

we raised beef cows for 15 years , this is the first time we milk a cow and learning to make butter ice cream, doing ok. But i have one question, heavy cream for ice cream, we scape the think cream off the top, but there is another white layer, is that half and half or part of the heavy whipping cream,

Thank you living in Africa and enjoying raw milk but hated the taste now I know why thanks a bunch

I get raw whole milk weekly from my local dairy farmer. Yes, the cream will rise to the top on it's own, but the skimming method results in cream that is way too runny for my taste. True heavy cream, IMHO, should be solid, although the viscosity will vary depending on the centrifuge setting, the type of cow, the time of year, the cows' diet, etc. I buy real heavy cream pre-made from the same farmer; the last batch I received was so thick I could turn the jar upside down and it wouldn't fall out.

Maybe I'm just spoiled, but I bought a carton of expensive, organic "heavy" cream from the store, and it was the nastiest, runniest stuff I've ever tasted. Nothing at all like the thick, eat-with-a-spoon, fresh raw cream that I get weekly. It has a mildly-sweet, yet complex flavor that I love. I think the companies that make "heavy" cream for grocery stores are laughing all the way to the bank.

I think the best way to get true heavy cream would be to use a cream separator. I just got off the phone with my local farmer who makes the cream, and this is how he does it, with a hand-cranked cream separator. He has it on the highest setting, which makes the thickest cream, and his customers love it! He said it takes somewhere in the vicinity of 3 gallons of milk to make one pint of this stuff. So it's actually cheaper / easier to get it straight from the farmer than to make it myself.

However, I have been considering buying a cream separator on Amazon, such as this:

http://www.amazon.com/Cream-Separator-50L-H-Manual/dp/B0035QZ1G4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363137593&sr=8-1&keywords=cream+separator

Here is a video explaining how to use the above cream separator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9lLF9R_MZw&feature=youtu.be

Sorry, I can't answer the portion of your question about the fat percentage. It varies greatly depending on many different factors. I do know that the thicker the cream, the higher the fat percentage. You can get more information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cream

I am not affiliated with, nor benefit in any way from any products or services offered or promoted at the aforementioned websites.

i know this is a stupid question, but does how long does cream continue to separate after you skim it? I've just begun this whole 'fresh from the cow' experience and it seems that no matter how i skim the cream, after i bottle it in smaller bottles it STILL continues to separate. is this normal?

thanks.

We own cattle and we get raw milk every day. My dad threatens to stroke and die when I tell him not to boil it, though. I was wondering if you can make cream out of that? If I let it sit, it gets this thick skin on top which is pretty much butter. I was thinking about diluting it and then stir? I don't want to waste the butter, though. :P