MicroDairy Designs Chillers
What does the chiller do?
A chiller provides a reservoir of ice water to rapidly cool milk in the vat after processing or after milking. The ice water is pumped out of the chiller and circulated through the water jacket of the pasteurizer and then returned to the chiller. The milk is not pumped into the chiller because our philosophy is that any time you move milk you have to clean something…so we prefer to move the water to the milk instead of the other way around.
Not every processing operation requires a chiller. Chillers are necessary if you are using the vat as a bulk tank and need to cool the milk to storage temperature.
Low Capacity Deep Freeze Style Chiller (100 Gallon, 1/6 HP)
Our smallest unit works well with smaller vats (4, 15 and 30 gallon) and with people who are just processing one batch a day. The compressors are very small and the recovery time (to get the ice water cold again) before you can process another batch can be as much as 12-15 hours. We start out with a 25 cubic foot deep freeze, add casters so you can move the unit around for cleaning your processing room, drill ports so water can be pumped in and out of the chiller, add a circulation pump and a temperature controller to keep the vat from freezing the water to a solid block of ice and, finally, put a stainless steel lid on the top that allows the chiller to serve double duty as a sanitary work surface.
Medium Capacity Chiller (160 Gallons, 3/4 HP)
These work well with larger vats (30 and 45 gallon) and for people who are processing multiple batches per day. The compressors are much larger and the recovery time is typically 3-4 hours. We build these units from scratch.
Vertical 160 Gallon Chiller