VARIETY
We process skim, 2%, and whole milk at our dairy. We use the whole milk in making all of our different flavors as well as plain white. To produce skim and 2%, we send the whole milk through an old fashioned separator to take out the correct amount of cream. The separator is electric, but operates on the same principle as those old-fashioned separators like what your grandparents probably used. Our skim contains 0% and, when we make the 2%, we also take out all the cream just like when we make skim, but then we add the appropriate amount back in so that it contains 2% butter fat. Our whole milk is, well, whole. We don't take out any cream or put any back in – we just take it straight from the tank into the Pasteurizer. It usually contains between 3.6% and 4% butterfat.
|
 |
After separating and standardizing, the milk is pumped into an old style Pasteurizer. This is a 500-gallon-vat Pasteurizer. When sent to the Pasteurizer, the milk is held at about 150 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes in order to kill any harmful bacteria that would make people sick and cause spoilage of the milk.
The milk is then homogenized so that the cream in the 2% and whole milk won't separate. Upon leaving the homogenizer, the milk is cooled to 38 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in an instant while passing through a plate cooler. The milk is then bottled cold and moved immediately into the walk-in cooler. The bottler also requires at least two people to run it and about 500 gallons can be bottled per hour. On average we usually make fairly large batches of 2% and skim - usually 300 to 500 gallons, and smaller batches of the flavored milk and whole milk - usually 75 to 150 gallon batches. We usually bottle every day but Sunday, but at times we have been forced to even bottle on Sunday and other times we haven't needed to bottle everyday Monday through Saturday. We try our best to always have plenty of white milk, whole chocolate, and one or two specialty flavors, but when we are short on bottles like we have been lately, it is sometimes impossible to make the specialty flavors. |
|
|
|
