Pasteurization of milk at home

The technology of pasteurization of products is named after the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who lived in the late nineteenth century. Its essence lies in the one-time heating of products of liquid consistency, which leads to disinfection from various microorganisms. This allowed to increase the shelf life of products. Initially Technology was meant for beer and wine.

Widely used this method of preservation was obtained when processing dairy products. Pasteurization of milk is the process of heating to a temperature close to boiling and the destruction of pathogens without changing the basic properties - odor, consistency and taste.

The main task of pasteurization of milk is to prevent its premature souring, which is caused by lactic acid bacteria, as well as the reproduction of E. coli and other microorganisms.

In industrial production , a reaction to phosphatase is used to control the effectiveness of pasteurization. With a negative reaction, it is considered that all non-spore-forming pathogenic bacteria perished. The efficiency of the process will be high only if immediately after milking the milk has been cooled to a certain temperature and stored with it until the moment of pasteurization. For this, special cooling tanks are used on livestock farms.

In practice, pasteurization of milk can be carried out in three different ways.

Long pasteurization - milk is heated to a temperature of 65 degrees and is maintained in this state for half an hour.

Short-term pasteurization - the heating occurs up to 75 degrees and after twenty seconds the treatment stops.

Instant pasteurization of milk - it's heating it to a temperature of 85 degrees - and immediately cooling down. If pasteurization of milk was done instantly, the physical and chemical properties of some elements change, due to which its taste qualities change.

Equipment for milk production is used only on an industrial scale. At home, pasteurization can be done with a steamer. To begin with, it is necessary to sterilize the container in which the milk will be stored, placing Her into an ordinary oven at a temperature of about one hundred degrees for about twenty minutes. Or you can do it with traditional methods using steam.

Then milk is poured into the upper chamber of the steamer and the thermometer is placed so that it does not touch the walls, and in the lower - water. Milk is brought to a temperature of 65 degrees and is constantly stirred for thirty minutes. It is important to ensure that the temperature does not rise.

If milk is heated to 75 degrees, then pasteurization should be carried out only for fifteen minutes. After that, the container with milk should be immersed in ice water, without stopping stirring, until the temperature drops to four degrees Celsius.

After that, the milk is poured into a sterilized container, closed with a lid and placed in the refrigerator. Within two weeks you can not worry about that it will turn sour.