Cheese vat

An enclosed vat comprising a vessel, stirrer means in said vessel for stirring contents therein, said vessel being cylindrical and having a base portion, said base portion having a bottom wall, said bottom wall being in the form of a continuous annular upwardly opening trough, and said trough having a lowermost portion concentric with and equi-distant from both the center and periphery of said bottom wall, said trough when viewed in radial cross section, including a pair of upwardly uniformly sloping diverging walls, one of said pair of walls sloping upwardly to the center of said bottom wall, and the other of said pair of walls sloping upwardly to the periphery of said bottom wall, said stirrer means including a planetary stirrer having a paddle blade having a bottom sloped in accordance with the slope of said bottom wall, said paddle blade having major and minor axes of rotation, the major axis of rotation of said paddle blade being coaxial with the cylindrical vessel, and the minor axis of rotation of said paddle blade being parallel to the major axis of rotation and over the lowermost portion of said trough.

The enclosed vat as defined in claim 18 including means for emptying the cylindrical vessel in the form of a drain-off pipe adjacent the lowermost portion of said trough, and a compressed air inlet pipe adjacent a top of said cylindrical vessel.