Need help with cream separator

[Nesikep]

Hello all, Since we sold our steers off and everyone is weaned, I have help one cow back as a dairy cow for our own milk for a while, and have a few questions

we have a really old Vega (mfg by Eaton) cream centrifuge, which is probably about from 1950, and is functioning mechanically, however, it doesn't separate the cream because the cream turns into butter on the disks... we've tried with warm fresh milk, cold milk, adjusting the speed, etc and it just always turns into butter and clogs it.
What we're wondering is how fast the milk should flow through the machine, and if there's a limit to how much fat content the milk can have.. I'm thinking I may have a defective cow, her milk has1 cup cream over 6 cups milk if you just let it sit a day or so, which works out to 14% (Homogenized store milk is 3.25%)..


any help would be good, because if we can't get this centrifuge to work, it's going to be demoted to a flower pot... I'll try and get a picture of it

 

[dun]

Hello all, Since we sold our steers off and everyone is weaned, I have help one cow back as a dairy cow for our own milk for a while, and have a few questions

we have a really old Vega (mfg by Eaton) cream centrifuge, which is probably about from 1950, and is functioning mechanically, however, it doesn't separate the cream because the cream turns into butter on the disks... we've tried with warm fresh milk, cold milk, adjusting the speed, etc and it just always turns into butter and clogs it.
What we're wondering is how fast the milk should flow through the machine, and if there's a limit to how much fat content the milk can have.. I'm thinking I may have a defective cow, her milk has1 cup cream over 6 cups milk if you just let it sit a day or so, which works out to 14% (Homogenized store milk is 3.25%)..


any help would be good, because if we can't get this centrifuge to work, it's going to be demoted to a flower pot... I'll try and get a picture of it

Might try asking here: http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/

 

[chippie]

Here is another resource.

http://familycow.proboards.com/index.cgi

Something isn't working correctly with your separator. It shouldn't be agitating the milk so much that it turns to butter. We had an electric separator that belonged to my MIL. If I remember correctly, the milk flowed through it pretty quickly.

I checked on separators available and they average from 13 to 21 gallons per hour.

We let our milk cool and skim by hand. Or you use glass sun tea jars (the type with the spigot at the bottom), as a gravity separator.

I didn't like the machine because cleaning the discs after using is a pain in the rear. We only cool about 3 gallons at a time because we don't have space in the fridge for more.

I hope that this helps.

 

[HeritageFarm]

I'm wondering if you ever fixed your problem? I'm the Cream Separator Guy from HT and I restore/refurbish/repair antique cream separators. I also run the Cream Separator Gallery and wouldn't mind a picture of a Vega.

 

[Nesikep]

I'll try and remember to take one (it may take a while), No, I didn't get it resolved, partly because I dried up the cow I was milking.

Thanks for the replay though