Milk pasteurization vat: cost, price and how to start a business

What a milk pasteurizer is, why it is called that and how it is used. Which dairy products require pasteurization.

As the name clearly suggests, it is a fairly large tank — a vessel for pasteurizing milk. Similar processes are relevant for other liquids in the food industry, but milk is the raw material for an entire industry, and the scale of its processing is simply enormous. By default, a milk pasteurizer is not used on its own but as part of a process chain. Today's dairy plants are highly automated, with milk delivered daily by tanker from nearby farms for processing.

A pasteurization vat helps optimize milk processing, keep the pasteurization process under control and make the final product cheaper. Inside, the liquid is heated by electric heating elements or hot steam and then cooled with very cold water; the operating parameters are programmed in advance, and the electronics ensure they are followed.

The price of such equipment is relatively low, especially for substantial processing volumes. Modern models eliminate manual labour entirely and do not even require constant attention, so buying a high-capacity pasteurizer is a must when equipping or upgrading any milk processing business.

Why is a milk pasteurizer practical, and which products is it suitable for?

High capacity and autonomous operation have been mentioned above. In addition, pasteurizers are durable (made of stainless steel), versatile and easy to operate. A good VDP batch pasteurizer (long-time pasteurization vat) completely destroys any bacteria and is useful for producing a wide variety of dairy products. And if the standard configurations do not quite suit you, you can order equipment built to your own requirements as a custom project.

In the vat you can not only pasteurize fresh milk, but also hold cream and mix ingredients for ice cream — as well as make kefir and other cultured dairy products. Many types of cheese, as well as the well-known sour cream and tvorog (quark), also go through milk pasteurization during production. Safety is ensured at a high level for both fast and long pasteurization, although the duration of these processes is relative: in modern large-capacity pasteurizers, the contents are heated to +75 °C in an hour and a half at most, and this temperature is held for up to 30 minutes. You can buy a tank for milk pasteurization from the manufacturer, Milberg, by filling in the form with your parameters on the website.