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Quotes - Engineering - Sales
What decides a dairy heat exchanger
Two questions settle most dairy heat exchanger selections before anyone opens a rating program: what is the product, and what is the exchanger being asked to do to it. Skim milk at 38°F behaves almost like water in a 3–5 mm plate channel. Heavy cream at the same temperature is several times thicker, and a stirred yogurt after the break loses body if it is forced through those same narrow gaps. The product sets the channel, and the channel sets the construction. Get that pairing wrong and the symptoms are familiar: a cream cooler that cannot reach temperature because the pump runs out of head, or a cultured product that leaves the cooler thinner than it went in.
The duty comes second. Cooling raw milk on receipt, pasteurizing it with regeneration, warming cheese milk to set temperature, pulling whey down before fat is lost, or bringing product to 275–300°F for UHT each puts a different load on the plates or tubes, a different approach on the utility side and a different question in front of the inspector. One plate frame often carries regenerator, heater and cooler at once, which is why this site is arranged by dairy duty and not split into heating and cooling. A whey cooler at a cheese plant and a receiving cooler at a fluid plant may use the same plate pattern, yet one is sized around fat loss in warm whey and the other around tanker unload rate.
Pick the product family that matches your line. Each section names the construction we usually build for it, the temperatures and fat levels that drive the sizing, and the details a quote has to carry: fat and solids, any fines or pieces, flow, temperatures on both sides, the utility, regeneration, and whether 3-A or PMO paperwork applies. Where a product sits between two families, such as a high-fat blend or a cultured drink, one call with an application specialist usually places it. Replacement buyers can start from the nameplate instead: the replacement section matches a new plate pack, tube bundle or complete unit to the frame already in your plant.
Usual construction by product and duty
This is the starting point we work from. Flow, fouling and the plant's cleaning program can move a duty one row over. Each row links to the construction page with its materials, options and standard build.
| PRODUCT / DUTY | USUAL CONSTRUCTION | WHY |
| Raw milk receiving and silo cooling | Gasketed plate | Water-like product and a close chilled-water approach keep the pack short and easy to open. |
| Fluid milk HTST with regeneration | Multi-section plate frame | Regenerator, heater and cooler share one frame, divided by connector plates. |
| Regenerator under a strict leak audit | Double-wall plate | A breach vents to the plate edge, where it shows, instead of crossing into product. |
| Cream above about 30% fat, ice cream mix | Wide-gap plate | Wider channels hold pressure drop down as viscosity climbs on cooling. |
| Yogurt and cultured product after the break | Corrugated tube-in-tube | Low shear keeps body, and the corrugation lifts heat transfer without tight gaps. |
| Fruit preparations and product with pieces | Single-tube tube-in-tube | An open bore passes pieces up to about 1 in without bridging or crushing them. |
| Whey and permeate cooling | Gasketed plate | Thin, low-protein streams foul little and cool hard against chilled water or glycol. |
| UHT and ultra-pasteurized milk | Sanitary tubular shell | Tubes tolerate the pressure and 280°F-plus walls and run longer between cleans than gaskets. |
Three decisions after the product
Regeneration or once-through
- Milk-to-milk regeneration of 85–94% cuts heating and cooling load together
- Each extra point of regeneration adds plates and lengthens the pack
- Once-through suits small batches, viscous mix and frequent product changes
- The PMO wants the pasteurized side held at least 1 psi above raw
Single wall or double wall
- Single-wall plates rely on the pressure differential and routine leak testing
- Double-wall plates vent a breach to atmosphere where an operator can see it
- Some processors and export customers ask for double wall by name
- Double wall gives up some heat transfer, so a double-wall regenerator needs more plates for the same percent
Complete unit or new pack
- A complete unit ships with frame, plates, gaskets and its documentation
- A new plate pack or tube bundle can go into a frame you already run
- Plate count, gap, pass arrangement and port size let us match a pack
- Everything we supply is new; customer-owned packs are not regasketed here
Related
Dairy Solutions
HTST & Regeneration
An HTST plate heat exchanger puts regenerator, heater and cooler in one frame. How regeneration percent, the 1 psi rule and the section layout are sized.
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Dairy Solutions
Cream Heating
A cream heat exchanger sized for heavy cream: wide-gap plates above about 30 percent fat, 166°F pasteurizing and cooling that protects the fat.
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Dairy Solutions
Yogurt & Cultured Product
Tube in tube yogurt cooling after the break, plus plate heating of the milk base to 185–195°F and cooling to incubation temperture.
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