pasteurising your own milk on a small scale

intake farm

Member
Livestock Farmer
We are looking to start pasteurising our own milk on a small scale and are looking for a small cost effective pasteuriser, can any one recommend a make, second hand options, and also a small cold milk vending type machine. We are only looking at about 30 litres max as we only have a small herd now. Can anyone who has done this shout out about the costs, pitfalls etc please.
 

intake farm

Member
Livestock Farmer
@upnortheast is a fountain of pasteurising knowledge!

Milky day do some baby batch pasteurisers, but I honestly think you'll struggle to justify a vending machine for 30 litres.
I appreciate that we are looking at small numbers and need to find a system that can keep milk chilled for customers to help themselves. Open to ideas.
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
You would need a batch pasteurised maybe 100 litres. Graham Shepherd does them Think they are about £5k new. Not sure what is about second hand. The smallholder sites often have kit for sale

Cheapest vending machine is £7k ones with the card reader £10k. All prices approx. Think @onesiedale sold from a fridge & honesty box ?? That would be the most economical way in. and not much money lost if it doesn't work.
Thanks for the mention @Tim G Not sure I qualify for that title.😀
 

Tim G

Member
Livestock Farmer
I appreciate that we are looking at small numbers and need to find a system that can keep milk chilled for customers to help themselves. Open to ideas.
As @farmboy suggests, why not bottle it and have a small display fridge. Don't under estimate the work to maintain and clean a vending machine either. Also I'd say don't buy a pasteuriser that might suit now but you will soon outgrow. We started selling milk a few years ago with 3 cows. Within a month we had to find another, and a couple of months after that a fifth. Now up to 15.
 

Tim G

Member
Livestock Farmer
You would need a batch pasteurised maybe 100 litres. Graham Shepherd does them Think they are about £5k new. Not sure what is about second hand. The smallholder sites often have kit for sale

Cheapest vending machine is £7k ones with the card reader £10k. All prices approx. Think @onesiedale sold from a fridge & honesty box ?? That would be the most economical way in. and not much money lost if it doesn't work.
Thanks for the mention @Tim G Not sure I qualify for that title.😀
@onesiedale has a great set up for using the zettle payment app which we've copied (sort of) here. What a difference its made allowing customers to self serve and pay by card.
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
As @farmboy suggests, why not bottle it and have a small display fridge. Don't under estimate the work to maintain and clean a vending machine either. Also I'd say don't buy a pasteuriser that might suit now but you will soon outgrow. We started selling milk a few years ago with 3 cows. Within a month we had to find another, and a couple of months after that a fifth. Now up to 15.
What pasteurised do you have now @Tim G
 

intake farm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't.
Well, I do but not using it yet. We've a 500l batch pasteuriser/cheese vat/yoghurt vat. We are in the process of finding some sort of shipping container or lorry body to put it in to give us a dedicated space.
would a continuous flow pasteuriser not be more time efficient? We have a 500 litres three phase one but its just to big for our needs?
anyone fancy upgrading and we can do a swap for a smaller one? Just a thought?
 

Tim G

Member
Livestock Farmer
would a continuous flow pasteuriser not be more time efficient? We have a 500 litres three phase one but its just to big for our needs?
anyone fancy upgrading and we can do a swap for a smaller one? Just a thought?
If I was doing 500 litres at a time, maybe continuous flow would work better. If I just do a 100 litres or so then I think the batch would be better. Also I can use it for other things (which is the main plan) and setting up a continuous flow with another bulk tank is going to take up a lot of room.

@onesiedale might be interested in your vat?
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Problem with a continuous flow pasteuriser doing small volumes is it takes 45 minutes to get to temp ( We heat it to 90 degrees to sterilise it then back to 73 to put the milk through ) then another 45 minutes at the end circulating cleaner, getting it to 90 degrees then cooling & flushing it
So (500 l / hr machine ) 150 litres / 20 minutes pasteurising, the machine would run for 100 minutes
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
Problem with a continuous flow pasteuriser doing small volumes is it takes 45 minutes to get to temp ( We heat it to 90 degrees to sterilise it then back to 73 to put the milk through ) then another 45 minutes at the end circulating cleaner, getting it to 90 degrees then cooling & flushing it
So (500 l / hr machine ) 150 litres / 20 minutes pasteurising, the machine would run for 100 minutes
....and the need for tanks, pre and post processing
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
I appreciate that we are looking at small numbers and need to find a system that can keep milk chilled for customers to help themselves. Open to ideas.
A simple fridge works well for our honesty shop.
Milk is hand filled into pint bottles , foil lids hand sealed. We only do about 2-3 crates/day though (40-60 pints)
very economical on glass. I reckon we get about 15 'trips' out of a bottle. Bottle cost is around 28p printed, 18p clear .
The real beauty of pint bottles is that people know immediately that they are re-useable, and they don't take ownership of them because they don't buy them, they just bring them back.
The other thing of course is that pinties stay under the radar for a lot of trading standards stuff ( in particular labelling)
PROVIDING that you remain the direct to customer seller you will be considered low risk for eho/trading standards people and you should find that they are good to work with.
IMG_20220611_152106_4.jpg
 
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If I was doing 500 litres at a time, maybe continuous flow would work better. If I just do a 100 litres or so then I think the batch would be better. Also I can use it for other things (which is the main plan) and setting up a continuous flow with another bulk tank is going to take up a lot of room.

@onesiedale might be interested in your vat?
Even for 100 litres an 200 litre per hour HTST continuous flow would be so much cheaper to run because most of the heat is recovered. …
 

onesiedale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Derbyshire
You are doing well, Talking to people doing glass they are all complaining about the public getting worse at returning bottles
One chap has 10,000 bottles missing in action :(
we started bottling at the begining of covid ( a the request of the village) . We bought 2 pallets of bottles, 1 plain (immediate delivery) 1 printed (6 week lead time)
Of those 2400 bottles purchased, we still have 300 unused. Considering we don't do doorstep, like you say, we are doing really well.
Had it been litre bottles, I think that the return rate would have been a lot lower. Add to that the cost to the customer, and us with lids labeling and date coding I think the pinties have done us and the customer well.
There's no gain to add cost into the job if it isn't necessary. Unless of course you are the sales man selling to the producer.
 
IMHO you need tall necked 38mm or 44mm old fashioned expensive bottles which stand out and edeucate your customer to return them.
30 trips (1 new set per month) should be possible and I have known a farm with dedicated customers who only had to replace them on an annual basis (365 trips)
It will break your heart though when you find a heap of 1000’s your own smashed printed bottles at the bottom of a disused railway cutting which have been taken off your customers’ doorsteps by a rival milk seller.
Maybe things have changed….?
 

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