1 - Start
Milk first comes to the balance tank, the purpose of it coming here is to ensure that the milk feeding on the line is not cut off. In other words, the milk is taken to the balance tank and the entry to the pipeline is fixed.
2 - 1. Regeneration
The milk taken with the help of pumps enters the 1st regeneration section of the pasteurizer. The milk coming to the 1st regeneration section encounters milk that has been previously pasteurized and reached high temperature. In this encounter, since there are plates between two different milks, direct contact does not occur. The temperature of the cold milk encountering pasteurized milk reaches 55°C. The milk reaching this temperature exits the 1st regeneration and is sent to the separator.
3 - Separator
The reason why the milk is sent to the separator after this stage is to reach the most suitable temperature for separating the cream. The cream of the milk that separates after leaving the 1st regeneration is separated. (The desired fat content is achieved and standardized.)
4 - 2. Regeneration
The milk with standardized fat content goes to the 2nd regeneration section. The milk entering this section encounters the milk coming from the holding tank. (What the holding tank is will be explained in later stages.) At this stage, the temperature of the milk reaches up to 60-70 °C.
5 - Heater
In the next stage, the milk reaches the heating section and in this process, the milk is heated with hot water. In this way, the temperature of the gradually heated milk is brought to the exact pasteurization temperature.
6 - Holding Tank
The milk that has reached the pasteurization temperature is sent to the holding tank mentioned in item 2. Here, the harmful microorganisms in the milk are killed by waiting for a certain period. It consists of a long tube system with zigzag marks. The aim of this process is to make the milk stay at the pasteurization temperature for a certain period of time. This time is an average of 15 seconds. (The milk coming from the holding tank mentioned in item 4 is the milk that exits.) At the end of the holding tank, there is a thermometer and a valve. If the temperature of the milk is not at the appropriate degree, the valve works automatically and the milk is taken back to the beginning of the pasteurizer for repasteurization and the system is circulated again.
7 - 1st and 2nd Regeneration
If there is no problem in terms of temperature, the milk coming out of the hot holder is sent again to the 1st and 2nd regeneration chambers. The milk coming here is cooled by encountering raw milk that has been pasteurized. While the pasteurized milk cools down, the raw milk that has just entered the pasteurized system is also heated. In this way, a significant energy recovery is provided.
8 - Cooler
Finally, the pasteurized milk passes to the cooler section and is cooled with icy water here.
Energy Recovery in Pasteurization
The most important point of the pasteurizer process is the part where we raise the temperature of the incoming raw milk to 65°C using the pasteurized milk. After reaching 65°C, the milk should only be heated by 35°C to reach 90°C. Since we use 90°C pasteurized milk that we initially heated to reach the raw milk from the starting temperature to 65°C, a significant energy saving is achieved.