Come with me on the journey of our milk.
Milking claws milk the cows. . .
Milk travels down the tubes connected to the milking claws. The blue box is a milk meter which measures the number of pounds each cow produces during one milking (8.6 lbs = 1 gallon). This is one of our higher producing cows. . .
Milk travels to the milk meter which is located in the basement. There is a milk meter for each milking claw in the milking parlor. We milk 24 cows at one time, so there are 24 milk meters in the basement. . .
Milk flows from the meters to the stainless steel pipe located under the meters. . .
The pipeline delivers milk into this small tank called a receiving jar. . .
The long tube is a milk filter which is located between the receiving jar and the plate cooler. This filter is changed after each milking – 3 times every day. . .
After going through the filter, milk enters the plate cooler where is cools from 100 degrees (its temperature when it leaves to cow) to approximately 50 degrees. . .
Lad checks the temperature gage on the plate cooler to make sure milk is being cooled to the correct temperature. . .
All of this milking equipment is washed after each milking - 3 times in a 24 hour period. It goes through a 3-cycle cleansing process that takes about 40 minutes.
The milk travels up though pipes into one of our two stainless steel bulk tanks. Milk is stored at 38 degrees in these tanks until the milk truck arrives each day. . .
Milk is pumped through a hose from our bulk tank onto the milk truck. . .
The hose is attached to the milk truck which will transport our milk to the processor.
The bulk tanks must be cleaned each time they are unloaded. On our farm, one tank is unloaded and cleaned daily and the other is every other day. This involves a 5-step wash cycle which takes about 40 minutes.
The milk truck travels to the processing plant where milk is tested for quality before being unloaded. . .
Our milk travels six miles to Middlefield Cheese where it is made into Swiss cheese.
After being pasteurized and processed, the end product is Swiss cheese. This is cheese made with milk from our cows at a local grocery store. . .
The milking parlor at our farm is operating 24 hours a day; milking cows 22 hours and cleansing equipment two hours.
Hope you enjoyed going on the journey of our milk!