Dairy Chemistry And Biochemistry

112 DAIRY CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

Figure 3.22 Cutaway diagram of a modern milk separator (from Towler, 1994).

Fat globules of less than 2pm diameter are incompletely removed by
cream separators and since the average size of fat globules decreases with
advancing lactation (Figure 3.19, the efficiency of separation decreases
concomitantly. The percentage fat in cream is regulated by manipulating the
ratio of cream to skim-milk streams from the separator, which in effect
regulates back-pressure. With any particular separator operating under
more or less fixed conditions, temperature is the most important variable
affecting the efficiency of separation via its effects on r, q and (pl - pz). The