Leon
Clean Cooperative Dairy Milk Production
Hi, Milkfans
When supplying milk to a cooperative it is of vital importance that the cooperative has a milk payment scheme according to which the farmers are paid. This is not only advantageous to the farmers, but also to the cooperative and to the consumers.
For the farmers the results of the test being done help them in managing their business and for the cooperative it means that they get what they pay for. Nobody can make an excellent product from bad raw material.
Meetings have to be held so that there can be agreement on what the specific tests will be and how much each component will impact the milk price. Usually these tests consist of Total Plate Count, Somatic Cell Count(Mastitis test) , Solids ( Fat, Protein and Lactose). Benchmarking to another dairy is of course a good idea.
Other non-qualitative factors that influence the milk price the farmers get are the distance the tankers have to drive to pick up the milk and the volume of milk supplied by the specific farmer.
This is the basics of management of paying for clean cooperative dairy milk production.
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
P.S. See the previous post for more on cleaning dairy equipment.
Cleaning Dairy Equipment
Hi, Milkfans
Like in life – so it is with dairy – always remember the basics!
When cleaning dairy equipment always give a cold water rinse until the water runs clear, then hot water alkaline, rinse, acid, rinse and finally sanitiser.
I still see hot water being used initially and that will definitely leave a protein deposit. Ask your mom about this – any protein stain must get as little heat as possible.
Some additional points: Clean all milk contact surfaces – If milking more than once per day; go through the whole cleaning process every time.
Bacteria come from many sources on the farm – animals, air, water, equipment, people and feed.
Check absolutely everything.
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
Cheesemaking Nuns!
Hi, Milkfans
Today and tomorrow I am teaching four nuns from Uganda, Africa to make Feta and Mozarella cheese!
They are a real treat to be with and are enjoying the course tremendously. Will see if I can get it right to post some pictures after the weekend. Will want to put some audio on the site as well sometime in next week.
Kind regards,
Leon
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Calorie vs. calorie
Hi, Milkmen and Milkmaidens
Have to do a calorie count for a product label?
Here in South Africa we use kiloJoules and the conversionfactor to get that to Calories is to devide by 4.2.
Thus 100 Cal amount to 420 kJ.
Check this difference though: calorie is the energy it takes to heat one gram of water one degree Celsius, and a Calorie(used in Food Industry) is actually a kiloCalorie(1000 Cal.) that has no relation to a calorie. :-), but is equal to 4.2 kJ.
Got it all figured,
Leon the Milkman
The case of Psychrotrophic bacteria
Psychrotrophic bacteria seem to be becoming the newest thorn in the side of the dairy industry. Scary bit is that we are helping them along.
“How?†do you ask?
Because of economic factors the pre-processing time of raw milk has been extended to an average of 4 days. This allows ample time for psychrotrophic, proteolytic bacteria to grow, and form heat stable enzymes. Although the psychrotrophic bacteria are easily killed off by normal pasteurization temperatures, the formed enzymes can survive UHT processes.
This causes multiple problems and we here at Elsenburg Dairy Lab have especially seen those problems on products like cottage cheese and UHT milk, more so over the past few years.
This is a group of bacteria that actually loves the cold chain, as it helps them outwit, outlast and outperform their competition. 😉
Nowadays psychotropic bacteria predominate in raw milk in the cold chain, especially Pseudomonas spp.
So much so that when the same milk is plated out and incubated at 7° C and at 30° C(as in Total Plate Count), the psychotropic growth will overtake the mesophilic growth, causing psychrotrophic counts to be higher than total plate counts.
I don’t think the methods of analysis are of much importance in this article, because there are many, ranging from microbial(determining the bacteria) and biochemical(determining the formed enzyme). Qualitative tests are of no use as we want to be able to enumerate the psychrotrophic bacteria.
The main concern I have is to raise awareness of a fast growing problem, that will only become more so in the future.
Possible solutions are the following:
1) Ask your lab to do a monthly psychrotrophic count on all farmers. This will identify
your high risk milk supply.2) Thermising the milk to 68° C before cooling on the farm. This would have to be done with a plate heat exchanger, but would be economical at this stage, because the milk is already at body temperature(37° C) and the treated milk can run against the incoming milk to heat it and to be cooled down itself. An ice bank would also be needed to finish the cooling process. The thermising process would obviously increase the overall quality of
the milk as well, without influencing heat stability to a large degree.
3) Very rapid cooling on the farm to 2° C, instead of the usual 4° C and keeping it there until processing.
4) Using a pre-cooler at the factory to cool the milk down quickly from the 5-7 °C that it arrives at, to 2 °C.
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
Milk Raw?
Hi, Milkfans
Are you using milk raw? Why take the chance?
While it is true that some nutrients are detroyed to some extent during pasteurization it also makes milk much safer to drink. Remember that milk is one of the most nutritionally complete foods – not only for humans, but also for bacteria, fungi, molds, etc 😉
If you are buying raw milk and you want to make it safe without detroying a lot of nutrients, pasteurize at 65 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes.
This is easily done by placing a pot inside of another one and filling the gap in between with water and placing on the stove – -like you would when melting chocolate. The milk comes inside the centre pot with a thermometer. Afterwards cool in the sink – which should be filled with ice water.
Hope that helped,
Leon the Milkman
A gallon of milk an hour?
Hi,
Why is that some idiots ask questions like: “Can you drink a gallon of milk in an hour?”
Come on people are you really that bored?
Well drinking a gallon of water in that time have caused death – same with any liquid. Milk will not be different, I’m sure. It should also supply you with about 2400 calories I think?!
Hhahaa, cannot believe the questions some people ask.
Regards,
The Laughing Milkman
Freezing Point
Hi, Milkfans
The freezing point of milk is used to detect added water. As you should know water freezes at 0° C and because milk has some salts and lactose that are in solution the freezing point of milk is slightly lower than water – to the point of about a half a degree Celsius.
In fact for the test, the freezing point of milk should fall between -0.512° C and -0.550° C. If it is closer to zero water is added and if it lies beyond -0.550° C the milk is either going sour or solids, like whey powder was added.
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
Cheese Yield vs. Milk Solids
Hi, Cheesefans
This is a topic not many lay cheesefanatics know about: the influence of milk solids on the yield of cheese.
The higher the Solids – being Fat, Protein( these are the ones important in cheese making) – the higher the yield of cheese out of a certain volume of milk.
Generally cow’s milk gives a higher yield than goat’s milk.
Thus you need more goat’s milk to make a kilo/pound of cheese than you would with cow’s milk.
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
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Cheese Yield and Factors Affecting Its Control: Proceedings of the IDF Seminar Held in Cork, Ireland
Milk Diet
Hi,
Well I saw this (dairy diet) being searched for on the internet. Milk is one of the most complete foods out there and because it is so high in water(about 87%) it is an excellent diet food, but I do not recommend any diet where the variety is so limited. No single food can supply all the nutrients a healthy body needs.
So for sure include milk in your healthy diet, but by no means make it the only food you consume!
Kind regards,
Leon the Milkman
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