Astra Dairy all-natural, fresh from the farm milk is produced directly on the farm, from the cows to the bottle, so you get the freshest milk possible. The milk only travels few feet from our cows in the barn to the bottle.

We offer Raw Milk which contains whole cream, or all of the cream that the cows provide. Whole milk is not pasteurized nor homogenized or engineered,in our bottle the cream really does rise to the top. Nothing is ever added to our milk nor is anything taken away from our whole milk.

Astra Dairy offers pasteurized milk for those who wants to drink milk straight from the bottle who have No time for boiling their milk. Pasteurization is a process that kills harmful bacteria by heating milk to a specific temperature for a set period of time, Hence milk can be consumed directly from the bottle without boiling.

History Of Pasteurisation

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a French scientist, was the founder of the science of bacteriology, initiated the war on bugs, and was the inventor of pasteurization. He discovered that heating milk would reduce the amount of bacteria that caused spoilage in milk. Interestingly, pasteurization was developed to improve the keeping qualities of wine, and was later adapted to dairy. Pasteurisation is done to increase the shelf life of a product.

How Pasteuisation Work

There are many different types of pasteurisation, but today most dairy plants use a type of pasteurisation called HTST which stands for High Temperature, Short Time. In the HTST process, milk heated to 72 °C (161 °F) for 15 seconds. The process is designed to heat the milk evenly so no part of the milk is subject to a shorter or longer time or lower temperature.

Nothing is added to the milk during pasteurisation, and the only change that pasteurization does is heating the milk. The process is quite effective at reducing bacteria, which kills the number of viable micro-organisms in milk. Pasteurization destroys almost all yeasts, molds, and common bacteria that cause spoilage in milk. The process has proved to be very effective in increasing the safety of milk, and has eliminated the spread of diseases through milk.

Astra Dairy now offers homogenized cow's milk to meet consumer demand for a non-cream milk. Astra Dairy homogenized milk is made from the all-natural, fresh from the farm milk. Homogenization is a purely physical process; nothing is added to the milk. Simply put, homogenization makes it so, the cream and milk can't separate unlike the raw whole milk.

What Is Homogenisation

Milk is an oil/ water emulsion, it has properties that make it a very unique beverage. Oil and water don’t mix. So the goal of homogenisation is to get the milk fat to be more evenly spread throughout the milk. Homogenisation is the process of breaking down the fat molecules in milk so that they stay integrated rather than separating as cream. The main goal of homogenization is to make sure that you have consistent tasting milk. It makes your milk homogeneous with an even amount of milk fat in each sip. Homogenisation can also give the milk a longer shelf life by preventing the cream from clumping together.

How Homogenisation Works

Homogenisation is a fairly old process. Homogenisation was invented in 1899, around the same time as pasteurization (1895). Auguste Gaulin, a Frenchman, obtained the first patent for a machine to homogenise milk. The patent consisted of a 3 piston pump in which product was forced through one or more hair like tubes under pressure.

When the milk is homogenised it is pushed through a small valve at a high pressure to break up the fat globules (droplets). Since large milk fat droplets are lower density, they float to the top. When they go through the homogenization process, they are broken down in to smaller droplets that remain evenly dispersed through the milk.

In summary, homogenisation is a simple process that helps standardize milk and make it a consistently great tasting product. With homogenisation, you don’t have the nuisance of having to shake or stir your milk every time you drink it.