Horse milk
Horse milk, actually mare milk is drunk by some, mostly people on a health cure of some kind. And in the Netherlands, a dozen odd mare’s get milked at Riga Ranch, Nieuwveen. In the interest of experimenting with horse milk, I visited the farm for a taste and a closer look at how a horse gets milked.
Horse milk maid
Horse milk is the base for kumis, a fermented milk drink originally from the Steppes (predominately the ‘Stan’ countries). In the 19th century it was drunk widely throughout Russia, especially in sanatoriums, as a cure-all and fortifying drink against tuberculosis.
After milking, I bought a couple of litres and started the fermentation experiments. Horse milk other than being very expensive (10 € a litre) has virtually no fat and a very high lactose (milk sugar) content rather like human milk in fact. The high lactose means that it is perfect for fermentation providing you can kick start the fermentation at the right temperature. Ideally one would do it as a spontaneous fermentation by leaving the milk in an open vat at 21 degrees for 24-32 hours. I cheated a bit and tried two experiments: the first I added some champagne yeast. The second I used elderflower, infusing several flowers from elderflowerheads in the warmed up milk, the elderflower has a natural yeast. The result: after 7 days both had fermented to a tingly slightly sour carbonated milk. The champagne yeast was a bit too bready in flavour, while the edlerflower was delicious but the perfume dominated too much the delicate taste of the horse milk. Back to the milking board…
Making a batch of horse milk champagne using elderflower