THE DAIRY FACTORY.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11688, 22 February 1902, Page 4

THE DAIRY FACTORY.

A START MADE. The South. Canterbury I)ai;y Company s central factory is net yet in "full woiking order, a good nutiy odds and ends bavin; to be completed" nevertheless an actual start with the work of butter-making was nvide vesterdav morning, when about 000 gallons of 'milk weie received, weighed, and passed through the separator. Owing to the incompleteness of some details, a few rough and ready arrangements had to be made to get through with the task, but the manager. Mr Dixon, made no difficulties, and made light of those that presented themselves. The managing director. Mr A. C. Thomson, informed us that alterations in hand at the Temuka branch necessitated the starting of the central factory before it was quite ready. The" factory is considered to be very well situated, at "the north side of the borough, elo--e to Caroline Bay, separated from it only by the railway," and the sea breezes will on* a large proportion of days in the year tend to keep the premises cool, and save the refrigerating plant. The building is a substantial one of brick, without ceiling, the roof being of boarding, felted over and covered with iron. In shape it resembles the letter L, the principal portion being 60ft long by wide, inside measures, the offset containing the steamengine and refrigerator next the dairy, and further off a boiler-room. On the opposite side of the dairy to this offset is a high receiving platform, open, but roofed over. The main building is divided by a wall into a smaller poition, where the separation is effected, and a larger, which in turn is divided by a difference of level of about 6ft or so. On the lower level the churn and butter-working machinery are placed, also the entrances to a, freezing chamber and a cool' room, the tops of Vhich extend the floor space of the higher portion, on which stands a huge cream tank and two cold water tanks; the rest of this upper floor, oyer the cold rooms, being available for storing odds and ends. The cool rooms have been carefully constructed, walls and ceiling being double-planked, twelve inches apart, and the space between filled with calcined pumice dust from Auckland. The doors are also double, with insulation packing, and close with felt air-tight join* and screw-up clasps. The whole of the flooring of the building is thickly concreted, sloped towards surface drains and sinks for convenient cleansing, and the interior of walls and roof is whitewashed. There are numerous branch drains about the premises, and these join one pipe drain running under the railway and discharging at the face of the low cliff upon the rubble protecting the clay from the waves. Mr W. J. Black has" laid out a road from the main road close by, round the building, and is now engaged in shingling it with beach shingle. Mr J. S. Turnbull was the architect for the building, and Messrs Werrv and Hunt the builders.

The machinery and plant installed comprise, as motive power, a 14 h.p. multitubular boiler and a neat and stronglybuilt 10 h.p. horizontal engine, made by Luke and Son, cf Wellington. The exhaust steam passes tirrough a vertical water-heater, to heat water for the boiler, and for the use of the factory. In the engine-room is placed a 3-ton Hercules ice machine, a very neat and compact machine, which, aided by a large coil of iron pipe, over which water continualy trickles, condenses amnioiria gas into a liquid, which, expanding in pipes run to and from the freezing and cooling rooms, produces a very low temperature. The Hercules ammonia machine is the type of frigerator new most used in the large freezing works. The machine was s»t to work for the first time about 10.50 yesterday morning, and in a very short time the pipes in the cool rooms were coated with hoar-frost, condensed and frozen from the moisture in the air. This machinery and connections have been erected by Mr Brownlow, for the makers. From the engine-room a stout belt passes through art aperture in the wail into the dairy and drives a line of overhead shafting, reaching from end to end, and whence belts ace taken to drive the several machines in the dairy. In the smaller room of the dairy stand the pasteuriser, the separator and its intermediate gearing, hot •water tank (wherein wcter is heated by turning steam into it), washing bench for the plant in this room, and, at a higher level, a 400-gallca milk tank. This tank and the cream tank are of tin cased in kauri. The 6001b churn on the lower floor is in shape a big and ponderous tox, with one whole side as a lid. It is joumalled at the centre of the ends, and is driven by a belt from the overhead shaft. Next to this stands a large butter worker, a circular table which revolves and carries the butt ""r, spread in a sheet upon it beneath a pair of fluted rollers, ■whose duty is to squeeze out butter-milk or 'water and mix evenly the salt put into the butter. Another "stoutly-built appliance is a kind of screw press, which is charged with butter, and the press screw being set to work, the butter is forced out in the- familiar rectangular pats, of definite weights. Tne separator is a De Laval, 440 gallons-per-hour machine. It does not take up much room, and its exterior does not give any hint of its complicated interior. The operative portion is a vessel holding perhaps a gallon and a half, but this space is neaily all taken up with internal fittings for distributing and guiding the milk, a large portion of these fittings, consisting cf a heavy nest of tin ccnes that fit close, and together make up quite a considerable weight. The separator is driven from the intermediate gearing by a strong ccid, and its proper rate is 5600 revolutions per minute. It takes a good while to get the machine up to this speed; yesterday morning quite a. quarter of an hour, though it is quite easy to turn it slowly, and even at some speed, by hand. Mr Dixon started it by putting on the driving cord, and then by fractious and at intervals passing the driving bait from its loose pulley. An ingenious bell attachment tells the rate the separator is going, and we observed that for many minutes after the driving belt had been put full on the rate continued to increase, from 30 strokes per minute to 60, and then more and more quickly till they reached two per second. When the separator had been at work some time the bell tinkled 48 strokes per minute. When its work was done, and the driving belt was turned on to its loose pulley, the momentum of the whirling separator kept it going for over five minuter. We may add that the engine, and boiler were obtained direct from the nrakers, Luke and Co., Wellington; the Hercules machine from Sydney; the cream and milk tanks, and some of the appliances were local!y made by Mr D. J. Caldwell, and galvanised tanks and spouting by Mr Hitch; the pasteuriser and cream coolers, and some other articles by J. Anderson and Co., and the chum, butter-worker and some other machinery from Topliss and Co., of Christchurch.

Whatever honour or credit may bs attached to the first delivery of milk at the factory, belongs to Mr'T. Gudsell, of Beaconsfield, who drove in with a can of 92Ibs, at 8.30 a.m. Later on came a cartful 1 of cans from Seadown, and after the north train arrived, an express-load, of cans from Ternuka, the factory there being closed for a day or two, pending its conversion from a cheese factory into a. creamery. In all about 300 gallons were received yesterday morning. The. cans are hoisted from the vehicles, to the receiving and weighing platform, by means of a small winch and swinging- crane, and each person's milk is tipped into a large vessel holding about 50 gallons. (One supplier filled this vessel one and a half times.) • This rests upon a weighing machine by Fairbanks, the weights .of which are very handily arranged, ail sliding en graduate'! bars. As each person's miiic is weighed and recorded. it is run out of the weighing can by a large valved spout with muslin straining bag on the end, into a 200-gallon receiving tank. The old-fashioned bottle-shaped cans, with handles near the top, are difficult to empty : the new cylindrical ones, with handles well down the side, are much more convenient. The receiving tank being full, the machinery was set going, the first milk running into the heater at 11.50 a.m. The heater is a

cylindrical vessel with a steam jacket for warming the milk to 90 or 100 degrees bsfore separating, the milk bein-r kept stirred vrhV ■ '•• in the vessel by belt-driven paddles. This appliance is also used for " pasteurising" milk, in which process the temperature is made much higher, and the effluent hot milk is at once quicklv cooled. Tri a few minutes warm milk was being clelivero'i into the separaror. and soon two streets began to issue from it. one or w:-rm ir.r'fc. which ran nlor.T a tin spout to a 200L'illcb tank on a stand 15 or 20 yards outsi'le the b'.'il'.ing. the other, a thinner one of cor -.-?. of cream. This was delivered into tltp trough of a small surface cooler, corsi>tirr of a series of Sat tubes throuch which a stream of cold water was ken; flowing, and the cream fell from the appliance into a paif ffor lack of a spout not yet delivered), and was ponred into the •cream tank. The cream tank, as pre-

I viously mentioned, is a big one, cf 400 or 500 gallons capacity, and the morning's collection put but a few inches of cream I over the bottom. This tank is fitted with a large tubular grid, through which, as may be required, hot or cold water can be ruir, and the grid being automatically raised or lowered through, the cream, a perfect command of the temperature is secured, and cream can thus be kept for considerable periods. The separation completed, Mr Dixon promptly pulled things to pieces for cleaning, and it was interesting to see what a- curious mess of dirt was collected by the separator. A dense coat of whitey-brown stuff covered the inside of the separator vessel, and from a channel in the cap Mr Dixon scraped out a laver of muddier stuff approximately half an "inch thick. The separator thus makes three separations, cot only two. The warm skimmed milk as it ran down the spout to the outer tank looked quite nice, 'and anything but " sky-blue,'' and after making" the appropriate test, by means of a can lid, we can say that it was a pleasant beverage. Mr A. ■' C. Thomson requested us to say that everyone who likes to cany an empty billy to the factory between 10 and 11 o'clock this morning* may carry it away full of skim milk, gratis. The skim milk tank, we may add? is elevated, so that suppliers who take away skim milk can fill it into cans in their carts through, a tap. In'concluding these remarks on our observations we must' thank the manager, Mr Dixon, for his courtesy and good humour. We and others must have often been in his way, in our desire to see cioselv into everything, but he not only did not complain, but at any moment was ready and willing to explain any appliance or any process in progress. Mr A. C. Thomson, managing director, was present, and he, too, willingly gave vis every facility and any information in his power. We are sure that when the factory is got into complete order, and the public are invited to inspect it at work, the visitors who have never seen a dairy factorv will be much pleased and agreeably interested in the work of the modern steam dairy-maid. I The company advertise this morning that they are now prepared to receive milk at the central factory, and that the price is to be Qd per lb of butter-fat. We understand that arrangements will be made to pick up cans of milk at any railway station, the company carting the cans from Timaru station to the factory and back. For this purpose they have ordered a suitable cart from T. Ferguson, and Co., who have just completed it. *lt is a good strong cart, capable of carrying full loads of milk for years without straining it, and it is nicely and appropriately painted in cream colour, neatly lined out with red and terra cotta. ■ For the purpose of town delivery of milk, later on, the directors will probably introduce the latest type - cart, called a "float." The company have now done their part in providing an up-to-date butter factory for the district, with branch creameries, and it remains for the farmers cf the district who can do so to take the fullest advantage of it, for their own benefit in the first place, and for the benefit of South Canterbury in the second. The experience of these institutions' elsewhere guarantees that both these benefits will accrue from the factory being properly taken advantage of. The milk supplier receives more meney from his cows, and the community is "saved sending money to other quarters to purchase what can be produced at their doors. Self-interest and the mucli-talke.l-of encouragement of local industry combine as inducements to the support of the local butter factory.