Shelf Stable Milk - would you buy it or use it in cooking?

I haven’t bought any shelf stable milk/8oz containers, but I am totally in love with Fairlife milk. It’s ultra-filtered and has an expiration date of I think around 2 months. However it’s made gives it more protein and less sugar than regular milk.

I think it tastes great! I drink it straight and put it in cereal.

It is well more expensive than regular milk, but I was in a conundrum where I would run out of milk too often if I bought a half gallon, but end up with a good bit of spoiled milk if I bought a gallon. Now I buy 3 half-gallons of Fairlife at a time and never run out and never have it go bad. So the convenience and the lack of wasted milk justifies and evens out the price for me.

Back in the 80s I had a client who dealt in super-sterilization equipment. It’s a tricky technology - bring up the temperature too slowly and things get scalded before they’re sufficiently sterilized. Bring it up too quickly, and liquids can superheat and explode.

Reminds me of when my mother used to can preserves in an old fashioned pressure cooker. It had a weighted cap for a safety valve, which at least once blew so high it dented the ceiling.

Is that really the case in the US? I’m a 57 year old German and have known it all my life.

ETA: I now see that this point has been raised and answered before. Nevermind.

I have a pretty average size US fridge, nothing premium about it. I could probably fit 50 1 gallon jugs of milk in there.

I have a standard size German fridge, and I couldn’t even store one 1 gallon jug anywhere in it. I (and most other Germans) buy milk in one liter packs (a bit less than a quarter gallon). That lasts for about two weeks for me, as a single (nowadays, I only buy oat milk, but in the same dimensions).

Target carries shelf stable milk, as does Dollar Tree and Costco. Any of them closer to you? All three offer online ordering and shipping.

Trader Joe’s carries shelf stable whipping cream in 8 oz boxes, I’m a little surprised they don’t also offer UHT milk

I have bought Channel Island milk for that, but I do not remember if the carton was UHT or not. Some of it is; you would have to check the particular brand.

Average size US fridge >>>>> average size European fridge.

After almost a decade in Europe, I find average US fridges to be absolutely enormous.

Interesting. According to Whirlpool, in the US

  • Small refrigerators: 11 to 13 cu. ft.
  • Medium refrigerators: 14 to 21 cu. ft.
  • Large refrigerators: 22 to 31+ cu. ft.

A gallon of milk is 0.134 cubic foot. So even the smallest small refrigerator has room for multiple gallons.

It isn’t uncommon (I don’t think) for US homes to have a separate chest freezer because the normal refrigerator doesn’t have enough room.

I have no idea about the volume of my fridge, but the way the different shelves and racks are laid out, there is no way to fit for such a big container. But milk isn’t approximately sold in that volume, I think I’ve never seen a bigger pack than one liter at any store.

Yeah, it’s not about the total interior volume, it’s the layout.

This is basically my fridge:

https://www.hifi.lu/en/p/12006132-combi-built-in-fridge-freezer-ki86nvse0-iq300

That’s a pretty typical size around here.

Total interior fridge capacity is 184 liters, which is about 6½ cubic feet. Way under the “small” category in the list above. But, in theory, if a gallon of milk is a little under 4 liters, the fridge will hold over 45 gallons.

However— if you click through and look at the shelf spacing and stuff, there’s just nowhere to put an American gallon jug, let alone 45.

The 1-liter UHT box, though? Slots nicely into the door rack.

And your fridge is about one third larger than mine, I don’t have two separate compartments. What my fridge does have is a small freezing compartment at the top, though.