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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 508, 12 September 1867, Page 2

Condensed Milk. —Condensed milk has, within a few years past, become an article of almost universal use in some parts of America. The details of the curious process by which it is prepared, published in a recent issue of the New York Journal of Commerce, and copied below, are quite interesting:—The milk is drawn from the cows in the most cleanly manner, and strained through wire-cloth j it is then cooled in cans placed in running spring water, or vats containing three times as much water as there is milk to be cooled. Milk drawn at night is cooled separately from that drawn in the morn ing. The pails, strainers, and cans are thoroughly scalded and dried immediately after use. Cows must not be fed with turnips or any food that will impart a disagreable flavour to the milk, or decrease its richness. The milk having been thoroughly cooled, is taken to the receiving room and poured into large square vats lined with tin. The emptied cans are then scalded with steam and salsoda, and rinsed with cold water until perfectly clean. The milk is drawn from the receiving tank to a large vat holding 800 gallons, by this time deprived of all animal heat. It is run into cans which are placed in a large circular vat, having a chamber at the bottom covered by a cast iron perforated rack ; one pipe forces water nearly to the tops of the caus, while another pipe forces steam through the water ; the milk is thus heated to 120 degrees, which causes the albumen to coagulate and adhere to the sides of the cans. The milk is then run off to another vat containing a huge copper coil for steam, and boiled. Powdered loaf sugar is then added in sufficient quantity to prevent further decomposition. The milk is then drawn into the vacuum boiler or condenser. This is a closed boiler, or alembic, having a steam chamber. The air in the interior of the apparatus is exhausted by continual pumping. Steam is then let on, and active ebuUition takes place in the vacuum pan, the temperature rising to 120 Fahrenheit; the vapour rising in a pipe surrounded by a steam jet, is led into the top of a large cylinder, and entering a copper worm makes its way to the bottom of the coil; a continual shower of cold water falls on the coil from the top of the cylinder. The air pump keeps a constant vacuum in the alembic during the entire operation, a glass tube on the outside showing when the contents rise near the mouth of the air pump, which is then stopped to prevent the waste of material that would be pumped out. The evaporation of the water takes place rapidly, and at a low temperature, without danger of burning the milk. Seven hundred gallons of milk are thus condensed in an hour. When sufficiently condensed, the evaporation is stopped by the application of cold water, and the milk is drawn off into cans, taken to the cooling room, I placed in large vats, and surrounded with pure spring water and ice. The temperature is thus reduced to fifty degrees. The milk is then ready to be packed in cans for sale. The milk has undergone no other change than the extraction by evaporation of seventy-fire per cent, of water, and the addition of loaf sugar. The addition of one part of water reconverts the milk into rich cream, and two parts of water brings it into pure fresh milk. 'Che condensed milk is usually packed in small air-tight cans, and cannot be adulterated unless the fact is publicly known. Mr Gail Borden, of Brewster, N.Y., having been engaged for many years in experiments on the subject of nutrition and the preservation of food, has established several large dairies in different parts of the States, where this process is carried on. Naebow Escape feom Dbowning.— On some teams going to Cooma with loading, had to camp on the Qundaroo side of the Molonglo on account of the swollen state of its waters, and there remain until the flood should sufficiently abate to admit of crossing. Requiring rations, some time in the afternoon a lad named Polock accompanying the teams, mounted a horse with the intention of crossing the river and coming into Queanbeyan to procure some. When he got into the river on the horse, it appears the current was too strong, and had the effect of washing the lad from the animal, owing to its suddenly going under the water, and the lad was carried rapidly down the stream; fortunately, assistance was close at hand, and some men seeing the extreme danger the lad was in, ran with a rope and threw it out to him, who had by this time been washed a good distance down the stream ; he succeeded in catching hold of it, and by its means was hauled to the bank. He was thus saved from a watery grave, which without such assistance, would, undoubtedly, have been the result,—Queanbeyan Age, Ist August*