Foods and beverages: apparatus – Mechanical – fluid or heat treatment of dairy food – With temperature or atmosphere modification
Patent
1990-06-22
1991-03-26
Simone, Timothy F.
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Mechanical, fluid or heat treatment of dairy food
With temperature or atmosphere modification
99456, 99458, A01J 1106, A01J 2511
Patent
active
050019724
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to cheese-making, and is concerned more particularly with the formation of blocks of compressed natural cheese from cheese curd which has been cut into small pieces, cubes, slices or chips, or broken up into granular curd, and mixed with salt and/or any other desired additive to form prepared cheese curd.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
An increasing volume of cheese is being manufactured commercially by forming blocks of natural cheese from prepared cheese curd in apparatus of the type comprising a hollow tower having an opening at the bottom thereof, the tower being fitted internally with a perforated lining defining a tubular column above said opening, the lining co-operating with the wall of the tower to form a drainage passage therebetween, a guillotine movable between a closed position closing the lower end of the column and an open position in which the lower end of the column is open, vacuum means for creating a sub-atmospheric pressure in the tower and column, means for introducing prepared cheese curd into the upper end of the tower to build up a pillar of curd in the column while the tower is at a sub-atmospheric pressure, the whey expressed from the lower end of the pillar of curd due to the weight of the curd superimposed thereon passing through the perforations in the lining and into said drainage passage, and an elevator positioned below the tower and operable to lower the pillar of curd when the guillotine is in the open position so that the lower end portion of the pillar of curd projects out of the lower end of the column, the guillotine being operable to cut a block of cheese from the lower end of the pillar of curd upon movement of the guillotine into the closed position. Apparatus of this type, which is known as a cheese block former, is described and illustrated in British patent specifications Nos. 1187964 and 1542844.
In previous known apparatus of this type, the tower, which is approximately sixteen feet in height, comprises four separate stainless steel walls, namely a front wall having forwardly projecting flanges at the longitudinal edges thereof, a rear wall having rearwardly projecting flanges at the longitudinal edges thereof, and two side walls bolted to the flanges on the front and rear walls. The side walls also have flanges at the longitudinal edges thereof to increase the rigidity of the tower. The perforated lining is formed from four perforated drainage plates namely two side drainage plates each having the longitudinal margins thereof clamped between the adjacent side wall of the tower and the adjacent flanges on the front and rear walls of the tower, and front and rear drainage plates engaged against the front and rear walls respectively of the tower and secured thereto only at the top and bottom thereof. Gaskets are interposed between the longitudinal margins of each side drainage plate and the adjacent side wall of the tower and between the longitudinal margins of the each side drainage plate and the adjacent flanges on the front and rear walls of the tower. Each drainage plate is formed from thin stainless steel plate having a thickness of approximately 0.56 mm, the perforations being formed in each plate by punching portions of the plate out of the plane of the plate to one side thereof to form a parallel strips the ends of which are integral with the remainder of the plate but the centre portions of which are spaced from the plate to form narrow slots between the plate and the side edges of the centre portions of the strips. Drainage plates of this construction are described and illustrated in British patent specification No. 1541836. The drainage plates are mounted in the tower with the punched out portions engaged flat against the walls of the tower so that the remainder of each plate is spaced from the tower to form the drainage passage for whey.
The known apparatus described above has performed satisfactorily for many years, but it is difficult to clean the interior of the tower, particularly at the junctions be
REFERENCES:
patent: 2982655 (1961-05-01), Budd et al.
patent: 3468026 (1969-09-01), Robertson et al.
patent: 3982480 (1976-09-01), Kamphuis
patent: 4137836 (1979-02-01), Megard
patent: 4539902 (1985-09-01), Brockwell et al.
Barlow Peter B.
Greenfield Robert A.
Alfa-Laval Cheese Systems Limited
Simone Timothy F.
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