Vat Pasteurizers

What’s the right size of vat pasteurizer? There are two factors to consider in sizing a vat – maximum capacity and minimum capacity. For example, many 100 gallon vats have a 30-40 gallon minimum, which means that you have to process at least 30 gallons at a time. For many small scale producers, some of the most lucrative product niches are very small quantities of specialty products. One example would be those developed exclusively for a particular restaurant. A 30 gallon minimum may eliminate your ability to serve that market. You may also want to do small test batches for experimental purposes and 30 gallons would be a lot to throw out if the experiment does not work well.
 

If you are considering a variety of value added products, Cascade Processing is an approach that quite a few of our customers are using as a growth and flexibility strategy. It uses multiple vats, but just one set of expensive thermometers, pumps, packagers, etc. First, batch #1 is pasteurized in the first vat. When the 30 minute holding time is finished, the thermometers are moved to the second vat to begin pasteurizing batch #2. During the following 30 minute pasteurizing period, batch #1 can be bottled or cultured. This procedure can then be repeated to give you the ability to make two or more different products at virtually the same time while retaining the flexibility to do very small batches. This can be very helpful if you are trying to keep a rich variety of very fresh and/or specialty products in front of your customers. It also means that you can start with a small investment and then expand as you develop your markets, rather than making a large investment and having a much higher breakeven point. When your market really expands, you can always use the small vats for research and development, or for making those small quantity specialty products.