PUKEKOHE BUTTER FACTORY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 85, 20 September 1915, Page 4

PUKEKOHE BUTTER FACTORY.

Pasteurising Up-to-date. Supply and Output. An inspection of tbe machinery flantat the Men Zealand Dairy Association's Pukekohe Butter Factory will convince any ordinary layman that the manufacture of nutter in that factory is being revoluti.nised. The pasteurisation of all cream has been adopted, and for this purpose one ol the best plants to be fjund anywhere in the Dominion has been installed, with a view of manufacturing the best quality and best keeping butter, lhe pasteurisation of tbe cream ia sufficient to throw off most feed flavours in the cream and neutralise any jliltarious bacteria. Although tha pasteurisation kills the bacteria, it does not actually sterilise the cream. After the cream has been treated by tbe pasteurisation plant it passes over the coolers. A prepared cutlure which is then added to ripsn the .ream improves the flavour and the general quality of the butter, a more exhaustive churning being obtiined. It is by thii process of adding a .large preponderance of desirable "g?rms that the undesirable germs are overcome. After twelve to fifteen hoars the cream becomes riptned and then cooled to 48 degrees for churning. The quick cooling is one of the essentials of pasteurising, to gain the best results of the treatment. Unless the cream was reinuculated by a starter the bent results would not be obtained frcm the pasteurisation of tbe cream. There is a dual saving in using the plant—a saving of steam in the first mEtance, because tbe hot cream in the pasteuriser in going into the regenerator hea's up toe that is pumped therein by rotary valveless pumps from tbe receiving vat e; and in the second instance the reverse applies as the hot cream from the pasteuriser is cooled down by passing over the cool cream in the generator. I'be cream ii pumped into the regenerator at a heat temperature varying from 60 to 70 degrees. From there it is forced out by two wings acting as a beater into tbe first paßteuri er, via a pipe, at a temperature ranging fiom 120 to 125 degrees, acccrding to the volume uf cream and temperature. In the second pasteuriser the same principles are embodied, the cream passing back into the regenerator at a temperature of 185 degrees and on to the coolers, one of which is operated by a circulation of brine, a part of the refrigerating plant, the other cooler by a supply of cold well water. The exhaust steam from the engine is utilised to do the pasteurising. From 1000 to 1500 gallons of cream are put through and delivered into tbe vats per hour. In an adjoining room is a new churn, one of the few of its kind in tbe Dominion, which has a capacity equal to 36 boxes of butter, representing 20001bs of butter each churning. THE SUPPLY AND OUTPUT. From the Pukekohe district there are 150 home cream Reparation suppliers sending their cream to the factory, and the total continues to increase. These figures show an increase of 50 suppliers over tbe total for the same period of last year. There is a distinct movement towards home separation. For tbe first week of this month the daily avtrage of butter manufactured was seven tons fourteen hundredweight, an increase of half a tun on tbe total for the corresponding period of the previous year and the average continues to increase a ton per day.