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Effect of Steaming Upon the Germ Life in Milk Cans

Department of Dairy Husbandry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

ABSTRACT

Introduction

For many years dairymen have commonly referred to milk cans which have been steamed as sterilized cans. It is, accordingly, something of a shock to learn that these steamed cans, as they reach the farm in summer, are usually teeming with germ life. Evidently there has been too much confidence in the killing effect of steam and this study is an attempt to measure the influence and limitations of steam in destroying germ life in milk cans.

For the past thirty years efforts at improving the city milk supply have been directed, largely, toward reducing its germ content and yet much of the milk as it reaches the milk plants during the summer months has a germ count of more than a million per cubic centimeter. The larger part of this germ life is the result of growth of bacteria in the milk. However, the morning's milk, which reaches the milk plant too quickly to show the influence of growth, in summer, commonly has a germ count of 50,000 to 100,000 per cubic centimeter.