- Location
- Derbyshire
unless you are within an inner circle and you know of a graveyard
Retail milk pasteuriser - advice please!
- Thread starter crashbox
- Start date
- Location
- North Norfolk
On a cycling holiday round Eastern France, in the Jura near Poligny, we went past lots of cheesemakers with old stainless steel parked outside. We were quite tempted to go back with a pickup and a wad of notes.unless you are within an inner circle and you know of a graveyard
- Location
- Northumberland
Very true.
We were very lucky when we started. Old fellow in Yorkshire found a pastueriser & seperator (40 years old ) for us ex farm condition for modest money. Had to spend a bit of money to sort them but still bargains His pickup turned up one day with the panels from a s/market cold store. I`ll send my son to fit it he says.
Reckon if we had been buying new would have cost at least 5x as much.
After a couple of years we were looking for a rotary filler. Somehow he heard we were looking, he came on the phone, the filler you want is in a shed at Selby. Got it bought reasonably complete with cobwebs & pigeon shi te. Bought a new labeller to go with it but got a decent grant
Since then we have put in a new bigger cold room, got a grant. bigger tanks, all ex farm, 2nd pastueriser, again ex farm. Seperator was up to 50 year old & with the risk of parts becoming hard to get by then so bought a new one. Sold the old one for what we paid for it.
There is a lot of kit out there, just a matter of finding it
- Location
- Wormingford, Essex
A friend sent me an advert he'd seen on facebook for a small bulk tank for £250. I looked at the pictures and realised it was a cheese vat, not a bulk tank and only two villages away. Shot up there the next day and got it bought, I'm not much of a haggler but offered 200 for it and he accepted. I'd taken the £250 in cash so had £50 left in my pocket, he also had an incomplete semi automatic yoghurt potting machine which he was wanting £150 for and I bid a checky 50 for it. He thought about it for a bit and I got that too. It was no good to me but the company that made it are local to me and that is who I get my milk bottles from. They wanted it for parts and gave me £200 for it, so I ended up with a 500 litre cheese vat which was also full of cheese molds, cheese press arms, scales and various other bits. Oh, and an electric yoghurt/cream pot sealer made by the same local company which they reckon are worth £1500. Total outlay of £50. I was offered £4000 for the vat a few weeks later (I didn't take it, the vat is still here ready to use one day). Don't think I'll get another deal like that in my lifetime.
Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
ah yes, i am in one of those inner circles, luckily for me because i keep hatching new crazy plans.unless you are within an inner circle and you know of a graveyard
For example, today my colleague and i have implemented a pneumatically controlled milk direction system to send milk either to our Top Ten hand filler, or our automatic line and when neither is requesting milk it diverts to the balance tank
Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Not trying to hijack the thread, but quite proud of this 
ollie989898
Member
I don't think I would want to chance my arm at selling unpasteurised milk. Is it really worth the sleepless nights from a food hygiene point of view?
- Location
- Wormingford, Essex
Quite right. Far more money in selling pharmaceuticals to the masses.....
ollie989898
Member
What a bizarre comment.
- Location
- Wormingford, Essex
No more bizarre than yours. You don't chance your arm at selling raw milk. You have a proper food safety system in place, follow it, monitor it, validate it. It would be no different to those pasteurising, I'm sure.
Raw milk selling is controlled by the FSA, and believe me, they make sure you do it properly.
There are less places to hide, your hygiene has to be spot on. Our inspector visits farms that pasteurise milk to sell and tells some horrific stories, and I am in no way saying that's what everyone's like, but you wouldn't want to drink milk from those places.
But back on topic, the op was asking about pasteurising milk. I'd fill the pasteuriser direct from the parlour, no point paying to cool milk only to have to pay to heat it up again.
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Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
but you've got to be ready to bottle at milking time then?
ollie989898
Member
What the heck does selling pharmaceuticals have to do with it though?
I'm just not sure I see any benefit in not pasteurising it. I've drank raw milk many times, used to take it home in my flask to put in tea. But I'm not sure I'd let the public do the same.
- Location
- Northumberland
Why ?
Would it not sit in the machine , chilled, ready to bottle when you had time
Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Sorry, brain frazzled, forgot we were talking batch
Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Although i can't help but think (assume), the EHO would not want warm milk sitting around ready to be pasteurised later, nor pasteurised milk sitting in a pasteuriser waiting to be bottled.
Could be wrong though!
- Location
- Northumberland
Assuming an automatic machine. Would have thought once the batch machine is filled ,press the start button & it goes through it`s routine finishing with chilled milk ?
Our continuous flow machines. We put the milk through the pasteuriser / seperater in the evening.
Cream in cans in the cold room ,Milk held in chilled tanks overnight, then bottled 1st job next morning
Main reason, putting the milk through the plant is a 1 man job. Bottling best with 3
Greenbeast
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Fair enough!
- Location
- Wormingford, Essex
You might not see any benefits in not pasteurising milk but come stand in my yard for an hour or two, you wouldn't have to wait long to hear someone tell you how drinking unpasteurised milk has changed their life. And they don't use that term lightly. I happily accept there are benefits to pasteurising milk and in some cases there is a need to do so. But please don't think that selling raw milk is just a case of waking up one morning with the idea to do it and dipping a bottle or two out of the bulk tank that afternoon. It's most certainly not.
The pharmaceutical comment was a slightly tongue in cheek one as many of our customers will tell me there is a whole sector of the food industry making money out of selling over processed crap to eat, and a whole sector of the pharmaceutical industry making a fortune out of selling the cures for eating it. Both will tell you raw milk is bad because it might just be good for you, and there's no money to be made from healthy people.
- Location
- Derbyshire
with a raw milk business, it is not the food hygiene point of view that is the biggest risk, it is the risk of a +ve TB reactor .
ollie989898
Member
I would view that as another tail off the same donkey.