BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Chaney’s Dairy Barn received four gold medals at the Los Angeles International Dairy Competition, a recognition of a lot of hard work and delicious ice cream.
“The chocolate milk also got 100 points out of 100, our Wow Now Brownie Cow ice cream received a gold medal and a perfect score, our vanilla received a gold medal and a perfect score,” Carl Chaney, co-owner of Chaney’s Dairy Barn, said.
Co-owner Debra Chaney said that winning was only possibly through teamwork.
“We each had a little business background, so through sticking out, help from others, from friends and family, we’ve been able to accomplish things beyond measure,” Debra said.
But winning four gold medals is not an easy task. In fact, there’s a lot of work at Chaney’s Dairy Barn that goes on behind the scenes.
One of those tasks is constantly milking cows, especially before it was done robotically
“In 1962, my dad built a barn, and we milked in that barn for 54 years, twice a day, every day for 54 years,” Carl said. “On June 14, 2016, we started milking cows with the robot.”
The Chaney’s also have to keep track of how much milk each cow dispenses, with some cows giving about 28 pounds of milk.
They also have to clean cows by having a robot spray iodine on each corner of the utter to reduce bacteria when cows go lay down
The milk then gets transferred over to the processing room where it’s processed into fluid milk, cream and ice cream mix.
“Then it’s mixed into two tanks, so now you have ice cream mix, then it has to come through the plate cooler and pasteurizes it,” Carl said. “It heats up and kills any bacteria that might be in the mix.”
Once the ice cream mix is done, Carl will then age it in a tank for about 14 hours to enhance its flavor
After that, it gets put into a carton and into a freezer, where it will eventually be taken up to the ice cream shop.
“We put on five gallons of ice cream mix into here and then she puts in the flavoring, and then when the mint ice cream starts coming out, she’s gonna start sprinkling chocolate flakes in it. And then they’re gonna put it right in the freezer, and then we don’t bring it out until we’re ready to serve it,” Carl said.
Of course, the Chaney’s take great care of their cows.
“Right now, the cows are getting 100 pounds of feed a day. They get almost a bathtub full of water,” Carl said. “We’ve got a brush back there. They love the brush.”
Hours of work for that delicious scoop of ice cream. So you next time you stop by Chaney’s, make sure to say thanks to Carl and Debra and, of course, their lovely cows.