Cheese block former

#This invention relates to cheese-making, and is concerned more particularly with the formation of blocks of compressed natural cheese from cheese curd.

#An increasing volume of cheese is being manufactured commercially by cutting cheese curd in a curd mill into small pieces, cubes, slices or chips or by breaking up the curd into granular form by continuous stirring in a vat, mixing the cut or granular curd with salt and any other desired additive to form a mixture which will hereinafter be referred to for convenience as prepared cheese curd, introducing the prepared cheese curd into a perforated tubular column in a chamber under vacuum so as to build up a pillar of curd, the curd in the lower portion of the pillar being compressed by the weight of superimposed curd to press out whey therefrom and consolidate the curd into cheese, and severing blocks of cheese from the bottom of the pillar. Apparatus for forming blocks of cheese in this way are described and illustrated in British Patent Specification Nos. 1,187,964, 1,542,844 and 1,567,894.

#The object of the invention is to provide an improved method and apparatus for forming blocks of cheese from prepared cheese curd using a perforated column in a chamber at a sub-atmospheric pressure.

#One construction of apparatus suitable for carrying out the method of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

#FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic side elevation showing the tower partially cut away and the former unit partially in section,

#FIG. 2 is a side elevation of the former unit and its tilting and elevating mechanisms, and

#The apparatus comprises a hollow tower 10 open at the lower end thereof, a former unit 11 arranged below the tower and defining an open-topped chamber 12 for reception of curd from the tower, a guillotine 13 mounted on the tower and operable to close off the lower end thereof, a vacuum installation 14 for extracting air and whey from the tower, and a feed device 15 for feeding curd into the top of the tower.

#The tower 10 comprises an annular base 20, an external casing 21 mounted in an upright position on the base 20, a tubular column 22 mounted inside the casing 21, and a sump 23 for collecting whey draining from the bottom of the tower. The walls of the column 22 are perforated and co-operate with the external casing 21 to form therebetween a space 24 for drainage of liquid. The column 22 can conveniently consist of perforated liners on the inside wall of the external casing 21. The liners may consist of thin stainless steel sheets, each sheet having small elongated strips punched out of the plane of the sheet to form two narrow slots on each side of each strip with the ends of the strips merging smoothly into the body of the sheet, as described in British Patent Specification No. 1,541,836. The inside surfaces of the walls of the column 22 are then smooth and unobstructed by any inwardly extending projections, and the strips space the body of the sheet from the casing 21 to provide the drainage space 24.

#The annular base 20 of the tower has a bore 28 with transverse dimensions equal to the internal transverse dimensions of the column 22. The upper part of the base has a drainage gallery 29 and, above the gallery, a section 30 which has cross sectional dimensions substantially equal to the internal dimensions of the external casing 21. The lower end of casing 21 is sealed in an annular recess (not shown) in the upper end of the surface of the section 30 with the inside surface of the casing 21 flush with the remaining surface of section 30, and the lower end of the tubular column 22 abuts against the lower wall of the gallery with the inside surface of the column flush with the surface of the bore 28 below the gallery. An annular seal 31 surrounds the bottom edge of the bore 28, for a purpose described hereinafter.