cheese vat

targetman

Anyone have any expierence? Local dairy farmer wants to get into the cheese market. The vat supplier says he will need a 15hp boiler. Any help would be appreciated.

Blackoakbob

that a good start....

he must have given them some idea of the amount of product he is going to process at one time. They should have a required pounds/hour or btu for the capacity of their vat. You probably don't have to start at the cow but you will need an idea of amount of product to be processed at a given time, vat supplier's requirements to do amount, at what pressure (which gives you the temp of the steam), etc. Sounds like a fun project, best of luck. I used to so some service at a famous mac and cheese in a blue box company. It was amazing how the process is done. Best Regards, Todd.

Christian Egli_2

Say Cheese

I suppose if the instructions say 15 hp, it's probably because you need 15 hp... I don't know much else what to say.

I think the sort of cheese considered will make an enormous difference. They all call for particular temperatures and ramp up and down speeds. Enormously popular vacuumized subatmoshperic steam (for sub-212F temperatures) would be the most ideal method of heating food without ever causing hot spots or cold spots and all at tremendous heat transfer rates - but this may not be the most straightforward scheme either. Hot water would be simpler to implement up front with slow heat transfer rates that may not be a problem anyways. Electric immersion coils would be even easier, but you're getting away from the ideal features that make good products.

Won't there also need to be a cooling system?

Another thing to consider is future expansion.

Say the cheese takes off and a second vat is needed, if this can be done without a new boiler, you'd be perhaps cheaper off to consider a 30 hp boiler right now. I just don't know. Many vats may be alternated on one single 15 hp boiler. At any rate, design the piping and the boiler header with ample prevision for expansion and easy connections.

So, what sort of cheese is it?

Christian Egli_2

Hello

Hey, Hi Blackoakbob, you beat me by a few minutes. Behold the power of cheese.

I hope you're doing fine. Best regards to you.

Blackoakbob

Ah, cheese...

Hi Christian!I'm doing well.
There's nothing so cool as watching that milk cook and the water drain away and you see all that stuff left over on the bottom, which is constantly stirred and then stuffed into a barrel.
One of the first days I was in this town I was sitting in the restaraunt and I saw all these young women, dressed in white, come in and sit down for lunch. I commented to my partner " Where did all the nurses come from?" Then one of them leaned over and said "Nurses don't smell like chesse". Was my face red! Best regards, all.

Steamhead (in transit)

Where's Mike Kraft

when we need him ?!?

Sorry, couldn't resist....... ;-)

Todd, I have some info on proper steam trap and air vent arrangements for vats.... get in touch if you're interested.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

targetman

What is the conversion from horsepower to btu/h?

Christian Egli_2

Let's see, it takes 15 horses...

Conversions are easy.

One horsepower can equally be replaced by ten square feet of metal surface within the boiler. Next, the boiler square foot is a conveniently metric measure amounting to about one kilowatt. Then of course there is about 3414 BTU/h per kW.

Thus, 15 bhp yields 150 sq.ft which turn into 150 kW which is finally 500,000 BTU/h

Online conversion machines are easy to find for you to plug in exact values.

Your cheese was the bait, wasn't it?

targetman

Thanks Christian. I thought I was missing something. I used the on line conversion. The cheese vat supplier told my customer potential customer that it converts to 52,000.

Christian Egli_2

A round up

52,000 BTU/h isn't even a cute pony.

Double, triple check the set up. Ultimately, the cheese operator must understand and know what he's getting into. If you sell him an oversized boiler, he won't like having a long term relationship with you...

Talk and think lots - now.

Best regards, Todd.

Mark Biro

Cheese hp and kw and kwh

Hey, Christian, I come to this board as a humble homeowner, but I thought I remembered that 1 hp is very vaguely 1 kw.

An Internet conversion site shows:
Power (kW) = Power (HP) x 0.7457
Power (HP) = Power (kW) x 1.341

kW are bigger. And the numbers are stunningly close to the current rate of conversion, euroes <--> dollar

And, yes, call it 3400 btu/kwHOUR.

Run 15hp for 1 hour = 38,000 btus (assumed 100% efficiency)

But are boiler hp different?!

AD&D Welding and Boiler works, "Serving all of Southern New England ," at http://www.ad-n-d.com/conv2.html, shows:

1 boiler hp = 33,479 btu per hr
btu per hr = boiler hp X 33,479

And Alken-Murray, "Innovative Pollution Solutions!," at
http://www.alken-murray.com/Boilerload.html, shows:

Another measure is the BTU (British thermal unit).
33,472 BTU equals 1 hp
To convert BTU into hp, divide the BTU rating by 33,472

So 15 boiler hp is more like half a million btus-hr?

Please forgive me if my brain is fried.

targetman

I would like to see a couple of these vats that are already in use.

targetman

Guess what. To find boiler horsepower ratings. All I had to do was flip the page in the RE catalog past the V8 to the V9.

Thanks everyone,
Todd