Tips and tricks for half and half

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I use heavy cream, never have an issue with it. I buy it by the pint, and it never spoils for me before I use it up :). I also keep powdered whole milk on board. It’s handy for times when I can’t get milk, and I mix it extra strong for coffee if needed. None of that artificial stuff for me either !!
 
I use the 36% [or 33%] whipping cream in my coffee.. It will last for almost 2 weeks even on our boat when refrigerated. It usually doesn't make it to two weeks though but when travelling we stock up a bit as it is not always available.

I too wonder if the fridge is not quite cold enough.
 
Takes a while to get use to black but when you do , you will never put anything in your coffee but coffee


Well, I HAVE heard it said that "once you go black, you'll never go back." . . . Pretty sure they were talking about coffee . . . right? :D
 
Well, I HAVE heard it said that "once you go black, you'll never go back." . . . Pretty sure they were talking about coffee . . . right? :D

Started out with black in the Navy then on to canned milk and sugar when working in Canadian logging camps. I still drink it the "Canadian way".
 
Heavy whipping cream has very little, if any, sugar in it. Milk sugar spoils easily and limits shelf life of half and half. Milk sugar also burns, scorches easily, so cream is easier to cook with also.

The fat content may be a concern, if so, don't use as much. The fat soluble chemicals may be a concern. They are with me.
 
Now I see that I'm not the only one who thought 'no way they don't know' lol

I use this and unless my guests see me adding it to their coffee, they don't even know the difference!

They are just too nice to tell you :)
 
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Pasteurized: 5-7 days, if stored very cold up to 10 days

Ultra-Pasteurized (UHT: Ultra High temperature): 30-90 days

This is the same as we get in the dirt home fridge. Pretty sure I read somewhere that the rocking action would make high fat milk like half & half into curds like cottage cheese. Is that just an old wive's tale?
 
This is the same as we get in the dirt home fridge. Pretty sure I read somewhere that the rocking action would make high fat milk like half & half into curds like cottage cheese. Is that just an old wive's tale?

Pretty sure that is wives tale.
The half and half we make, like all that I am aware of, is homogenized so you would have a very hard time making butter balls out of the fat with motion. Impossible I would suggest.
Curds, on the other hand, represent coagulation of protein (as in cheese). Motion will not do that. Spoilage might if it drove the pH down to 4.6 or so, but that is pretty spoiled and would no longer smell like something you would eat!
 
This is the same as we get in the dirt home fridge. Pretty sure I read somewhere that the rocking action would make high fat milk like half & half into curds like cottage cheese. Is that just an old wive's tale?

Nope, not a wives tale. Take a look at HopCar's post (#23). My sister-in-law makes home-made butter in a mason jar (well, she has my nephews do it). She fills a mason jar about 1/3 full of heavy cream and they vigorously shake the mason jar until the fat separates and becomes butter.

I can see how, on a rough day with a partially filled container, this could occur.
 
IRL, I’m highly skeptical. I’ve made butter quite a few times, the action required is significant. Look at it this way, if you ever have enough motion to make butter, the condition of the passengers will not be conducive to eating that butter.
 
I can see how, on a rough day with a partially filled container, this could occur.
I know you're kidding because if you've ever churned butter, it takes considerable effort! And even if this was possible to turn half n half in to butter do to the boats motion, the only thing left of the boat wouldn't be recognizable! :oldman::speed boat:
 
IRL, I’m highly skeptical. I’ve made butter quite a few times, the action required is significant. Look at it this way, if you ever have enough motion to make butter, the condition of the passengers will not be conducive to eating that butter.

Agree. In addition, the topic here is half and half which is a homogenized liquid. Homogenized means that the fat micelles have been reduced in size to such an extent that they will not come back together to form a solid at room temperature (butter)

Cream, from which you could make butter, is not homogenized. Still, if you can generate enough motion on your boat to make butter from cream in a container, I will not be there to witness it. That I can promise.
 
Let's not confuse a jar full of solid butter, with a few tiny solids forming n heavy cream. There is a massive divide between possible and probable. Again, look at Hopcar (post #23) reporting curdling.

Would it be possible in a slow, rolling trawler? probably not. How about banging away in a planing boat for 4-6 hours. Maybe?
 
Agree. In addition, the topic here is half and half which is a homogenized liquid. Homogenized means that the fat micelles have been reduced in size to such an extent that they will not come back together to form a solid at room temperature (butter)

Cream, from which you could make butter, is not homogenized. Still, if you can generate enough motion on your boat to make butter from cream in a container, I will not be there to witness it. That I can promise.

Critical difference. Thanks Klee.
 
Agitate cold cream to make whipped cream. Agitate warm aged cream to make butter. Agitate freezing cream to make ice cream.
 
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But agitate refrigerated homogenized half & half and you still have liquid half & half even after a couple weeks. Someday I will have some personal experience to report on. Till then...
 
Use Cream

My half and half for coffee keeps turning to butter onboard. Any tricks to stop this? Lasts only about one week then goes bad and turns.

Yes. Try to switch to cream. Last much longer. Oddly, the more butterfat content, the longer it lasts. Check it out on the "Use By" or "Sell By" labels. And it is truth in reality. Fats, essential for neurological tissue health. Just saying, the low fat thing was not a good idea.
 
Yes. . And it is truth in reality. Fats, essential for neurological tissue health. Just saying, the low fat thing was not a good idea.

Thread drift warning.....
Cowboy,
Couldn't agree more but rarely run across folks that have figured this out. What do you do for a living/what is your training?

The Harvard Medical School crippled several generations of Americans when they made this push away from fat forty years ago. It made children difficult to teach and caused millions of adults to acquire and suffer from metabolic syndrome (type II diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidosis/high cholesterol) as we substituted calories from simpler, more rapidly metabolized, more glucogenic carbohydrates rather than fat.
That advice from this vaunted institution ranks right up there in crimes against humanity in my view.

Parts of their faculty have rescinded that advice but very quietly. It remains as part of the medical lexicon in most quarters. Wrongly.

Good for you. Live long and prosper.
 
Let's not confuse a jar full of solid butter, with a few tiny solids forming n heavy cream. There is a massive divide between possible and probable. Again, look at Hopcar (post #23) reporting curdling.

Would it be possible in a slow, rolling trawler? probably not. How about banging away in a planing boat for 4-6 hours. Maybe?



Well there was this one time long ago in my bil 24 bayliner that left me with bone spurs in my spine. But we didn’t have any cream with us that day and I refuse to repeat the experiment.

Im full time keto and carry cream nearly all the time, it’s not a problem irl. That’s the best I can do!
 
Thread drift warning.....
Cowboy,
Couldn't agree more but rarely run across folks that have figured this out. What do you do for a living/what is your training?

The Harvard Medical School crippled several generations of Americans when they made this push away from fat forty years ago. It made children difficult to teach and caused millions of adults to acquire and suffer from metabolic syndrome (type II diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidosis/high cholesterol) as we substituted calories from simpler, more rapidly metabolized, more glucogenic carbohydrates rather than fat.
That advice from this vaunted institution ranks right up there in crimes against humanity in my view.

Parts of their faculty have rescinded that advice but very quietly. It remains as part of the medical lexicon in most quarters. Wrongly.

Good for you. Live long and prosper.

Bill, does that mean eating cheese is why I’m so smart? If I put butter and cheese on pasta does that cancel the carbs?
 
Medical background. Surgeon, but with an interest in metabolism. Yeah, I did drift there. Sorry about that.
 

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