DAIRY STERILISATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17946, 25 November 1932, Page 9

DAIRY STERILISATION

IMPORTANCE IN GRADING. POWER ENGINEERS CONSULTED COST VERSUS RESULTS ■ Of the many interesting subjects dis cussed at- Dm annual conference of power authorities’ engineers, held recently in Wellington,' that which veceived mox© attention than any othei was the contribution of the electrical industry to the advancement of dairying practice in New Zealand, said Mr. W. H. Boswell, in presenting to to-day's meeting of the Poverty Bay Power Board a brief report of tho proceedings. The- point mainly at issue was whether means, could be devised to assure perfect sterilisation of dairy plant in the dairy farmers’ milking sheds, and the question boiled down to a matter of costs versus results. The conference had been treated to a most instructive address by Professor Riddet-, director of Massey College, on bacteriology as applied to the dairying, industry. He indicated the need for the greatest vigilance oh the part all concerned, in order that one of New Zealand’s most important producing industries should be stimulated to the highest possible level. Close co-opera-tion of the Dairy Division, the dairy companies, and the engineers of power' .authorities could be extremely effective in this stimulation, the conference was told, and importance must be given to the question of electrical appliances in to dairying, as one means of :*PSpg the level of production and quality. What* the conference was told, said Mr. Bnswell, came to tho point that boiling,, water should be used in the sterilisation of dairy plants in individual sheds as welL as in factories. Farmers held that they could not secure boiling water from the standard dairy waterheating plants of to-day, and- the engineers were asked to give this problem their attention. The object was to remove any influence that might prevent a farmer securing finest grade for his cream when delivered at the factory, and in this connection sterilisation of the plant used in milking and separating was most important. METHOD OF GRADING, CREAM Mr. Bus well remarked in passing that, many engineers considered the existing method of testing cream for grade in New Zealand’s butter factories was ludicrous,'the grading depending on the senses of smell and taste developed by an individual/ who might be subject, quite unconsciously, to influences that would handicap his employment, of these senses. He quoted one or two incidents, calculated to cast some doubt upon the. certainty of this method of grading, and as indicating that there might be scope for investigation by others than power authorities’ engineers, as to the possibility of establishing some more certain means of grading. While agreeing that the use of water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit would be very desirable, power engineers were not absolutely convinced that the destruction of harmful bacteria could not be assured by regular use of water at between 180 and 200 degrees, for the same purpose. The goal to be aimed at could be achioved, doubtless, bub the power boards’ concern was to produce a standard article capable of doing, what was necessary in the production of hot water, without loading the dairy fanner wiUAa prohibitive cost. Avtually, Mr. Buswell assured the board, the difficulty was not in producing toiling water in the service tanks, but; to devise some method of either superheating it or re-hcating it as it flowed through the pipes of the milking plant, in the cleansing operation. When drawn off from- the cistern in- buckets and passed through the machine under present conditions, the water lost a proportion of its heat in transit, and this was the main source of complaint. The point that electrical appliance? specially designed for dairy farmers' requirements had immeasurably advanced the cause’ of hygiene in the milkingsheds was made by Mr. V. E. Sanders, manager to the board, who agreed with Mr. Buswell that the main question for power boards was whether a more effective system than that in use at present could be manufactured at a cost the farmers could meet.

The hoard expressed approval of the report, and thanked Mr. Buswell for lira review of the proceedings at tlie conference.