A qustion for you please

I have pasturised my milk (20 litres of beautiful Illawarra short horm cow milk), it is cold when I get it and I bring it to 61 degrees C and hold for 30 mins.

Now to cool it I place it in sterilised 10 litre buckets and cover it with the lid and let it sit to cool, I intend to make cheese next morning so it will have cooled to about 21 degree C over 10 hours.

My question is should I place it in the fridge overnight instead of leaving out to cool slowly, is it safe to do this.

My other option is to pasturise in the morning and cool it quickly and use it straight away.

ANy issues you can see, My hygiene techniques are wash everything in soap and water then rinse, then soak the bucket in 60 ml of 4% bleach (hypo) in 10 litres water.

ANy thoughts?

Peterhobit, back when we had the cow at home and milked her twice a day, we also employed an electric pasteurizer, which I still have to this day. It functioned as a double boiler. Poured the milk in and turned it on. When the milk temperature reached 161 a buzzer would go off. You then shut the power off and hooked up a hose to the unit and the sink faucet. Then you circulated cold water through it for about 10-15 minutes, which cooled the milk. So I’d say based on that operation, you’d want to cool your milk down immediately and put it in the fridge. As for holding your milk at the 161 temperature for 30 minutes, I believe that is not necessary. Once your milk hits the 161-degree mark, I think that’s all that has to be done.
I never held milk at any specific temperature for any amount of time. The buzzer went off and the cold water flowed. That’s all there is to it. My feeling is you’re injecting a lot of unnecessary over kill in your pasteurization process.

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