Despite Pasteur's experiments with wine, pasteurization faced significant resistance and took many years to gain widespread acceptance due to widespread skepticism.
Even though Pasteur proposed pasteurization for wine in 1868, it was not embraced by fine winemakers who traditionally preserved their wines through meticulous cellar maintenance and strict manufacturing methods. They found that pasteurized wine acquired an undesirable "cooked" taste.
In 1882, the first commercial milk pasteurizers were introduced, utilizing a high-temperature, short-time (HTST) process.
In 1879, Franz von Soxhlet invented the Soxhlet extractor, and in 1886, he advocated for the application of pasteurization to milk and other beverages.
Upon realizing that a low-temperature, long-time heating process (referred to as batch pasteurization) could effectively eliminate the TB bacterium in milk, governments promoted the adoption of this method.
By 1912, Milton Rosenau, an American public health official at the United States Marine Hospital Service, set standards for low-temperature pasteurization: slow heating at 60°C (140°F) for 20 minutes, as outlined in his publication "The Milk Question" (1912).
Low-temperature pasteurization successfully preserves the delightful, fresh flavor of milk. In this process, milk is gradually heated in a temperature-controlled vat.
In response to health concerns, U.S. states started enacting dairy pasteurization laws, with the initial legislation passed in 1947, and in 1973, the U.S. federal government made pasteurization mandatory for milk used in interstate trade.
History of low temperature pasteurization
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| Soxhlet apparatus |
