We travel a lot (to make a living) and bring 4 gallons of raw milk with us. We keep the cooler half full of water and then add ice to the neck of our 1/2 gallon ball jars. It will last up to 4 weeks for us when we keep it like this, at 32 degrees. Our refrigerator at home is kept at 39 degrees and it will keep 10-14 days at that temperature.

Regarding how long raw milk stays fresh: The short answer is (in my experience) on average, about a week.

Longer answer: How long it stays fresh depends on a number of things, including how fresh it was when you got it, how cold it stayed during transport from farm to your home, how cold your fridge is, and whether you’ve opened the container. And it depends what you mean by “fresh.” It will be safe to drink longer than a week–a very long time in fact. However, as it ages, the naturally occurring friendly bacteria will be eating the milk sugar (lactose), causing the milk to slowly “sour.” It’s not “spoiled” the way pasteurized milk becomes spoiled, but it becomes less pleasant to drink as fresh milk. Some people don’t mind it being slightly less sweet, but then everyone eventually will find a point where it’s not pleasant for them to drink.

Soured milk can still be used in cooking, see our article Maximizing the Use of Your Real Milk and Cream for tips and recipes. You can also pour sour milk on your garden to nourish the soil so at least it isn’t going down the drain, if you don’t finish it in time and don’t want to cook with it.

For my two-person household, where I drink most of the milk, I get two half-gallons per week. I get the half-gallons vs. getting a slightly cheaper gallon because I have found that keeping it air tight helps slow it down–if I open a gallon, as I drink it, more and more surface area is exposed to air and before I’m finished it’s getting too sour for my taste. So I start one half-gallon, keeping the other half-gallon sealed until I’m ready to start that one.

Regarding “shocking the system”: This depends. Some people who have been eating highly processed foods and have compromised digestive systems with “bad” bacteria in abundance, may have a reaction to raw milk and other foods with “good” bacteria (yogurt, lactofermented sauerkraut and pickles, kombucha and kvass, etc.). What happens is the good bacteria from the food start competing with the bad bacteria, causing them to die off. “Die-off” reactions can be uncomfortable and unpleasant, especially if they are sudden. Diarrhea is one possibility. And people sometimes interpret the die-off as “oh, that food is bad for me” when actually it’s helpful, but they’re getting too much of a good thing too suddenly. If you are concerned, you could start slow, just a small glass or even a few sips the first day, with a little more each day. If you’re getting uncomfortable symptoms, back off, have less, then build up more gradually. Hope this helps.

California has a lot of options including in retail stores. See the California page of our Real Milk Finder here: http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-finder/california/#ca