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The importance of milk cooling

In warm days it’s important not to forget: In raw milk above 7 °C grow bacteria rapidly.

Great care in production and handling of milk is necessary to ensure high quality dairy products. When dairy prod-ucts were used only at home, the quality was not so important. If you want to sell, products of every batch should have constant quality – with pleasant taste and smell.

Milk gets easily contaminated with dirt, bacteria and odours. It is an excellent medium for the growth of bacteria, particularly when not properly cooled. It should be removed from the barn immediately after milking and filtered – to remove any unwanted particles. However, it is impossible to strain bacteria out of milk.

One of the most important things to buy for successful dairy production is not only a cheese kettle, but also a milk cooling device. Milk coolers are one of the most important things to ensure constant quality of your dairy products.

Cooling milk immediately after milking keeps bacteria from multiplying rapidly. Holding milk at temperatures below 4 °C and above freezing maintains its excellent quality until it is processed for milk or manufactured into dairy products. Each degree in temperature above 4 °C elevates bacteria counts and decreases the shelf life of finished products. Close temperature control and clean milk are necessery to produce high quality dairy products. Bacteria use milk sugar, fat and other compounds of milk.

It is not recommended to process milk directly after milking. Milk cooling is especially important when there are considerable time lapses between milking and pasteurization or processing.

Milk cooling is even more important if you are processing raw milk (Plevnik cheese kettle with copper inside SKH-Cu is especially appropriate when processing raw milk). Only correctly cooled milk can be used raw. Usually, milk is pasteurized before processing.

Milk cooling in regular refrigerator is to slow. Milk coolers transfer temperature with a help of liquid and not air. Therefore, they cool milk 20 times faster. By stirring they ensure the same temperature of the whole milk and prevent warm milk in the middle.

By choosing the right cooling system you can lower your energy costs. Milk cooling is an important part of the total energy costs of operating a dairy. Energy demand and farm diary operating costs can be reduced using different options that involve heat recovery from your cooling system.

Basic rules:

  1. Cool milk below 4 °C in 30 minutes after milking.
    One of the most important factors in great quality milk is how quickly the milk is cooled.
  2. Hold the milk at 4 °C 
  3. Prevent temperatures from rising above 7 °C

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