Everything To Know About Instant Pot Pasteurize

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People who have access to raw milk need a safe, easy method to pasteurize it at home.

Raw milk can be extremely economical, especially if you have your own dairy cow or goats but it is essential to pasteurize it to prevent illnesses like Guillain-Barre syndrome, Listeria, and salmonella.

However, the entire pasteurization process can be time-consuming. We have good news, though – an Instant Pot can be used to simplify the pasteurization process for small batches of milk (around five liters).

Here, we’ll share the details of the process so keep reading!

What is Pasteurization and Why Is It Important?

We heat foods, in this case, milk, to a specific temperature and hold it there for a certain time.

The temperature is usually 63 degrees Celcius (145 degrees Fahrenheit) for half an hour or 72 degrees Celcius (162 degrees Fahrenheit) for just 15 seconds.

The purpose is to kill disease-causing organisms that can make us sick.

While pasteurization doesn’t kill every single pathogen in the milk as sterilization does, it kills just enough that the number of microbes left is very low and is unlikely to cause illness.

Of course, because not all the germs are killed, you still need to keep the milk chilled and use it within a certain number of days to prevent them from multiplying.

Pasteurization also helps to break down some of the milk proteins, making it easier to digest. You may wonder why we don’t just sterilize the milk instead of pasteurizing it.

This is because sterilization requires heating the milk to much higher temperatures which adversely affects its taste and quality.

It is probably clear now that to pasteurize milk at home, you need equipment for heating the milk and measuring and holding its temperature.

While this can be done on the stove with pots and thermometers, it is much less messy to use an Instant Pot to do the job.

Instant Pot Pasteurize – Everything You Need To Know

The Instant Pot is one of the most revolutionary and innovative kitchen appliances available. It has a range of different pressure settings and it can certainly be used to pasteurize milk.

However, there are different models of Instant Pot available on the market, so it is important to check the features to ensure you have the correct one for this job.

In particular, your Instant Pot needs to have the yogurt function if you are going to use it for pasteurizing milk.

This function is found on the IP-LUX, IP-Smart, and IP-DUO Instant Pot models. If you are using Instant Pot Ultra or IP-DUO Plus60, they are designed with a “sterilize” feature, which makes them also suitable for pasteurizing milk.

Once you have checked that your Instant Pot is suitable, you need to know that you will be using a temperature of 161 degrees Fahrenheit to pasteurize the milk.

The “Yogurt” setting on the pot is a non-pressure cooking smart program that is useful for fermented food recipes. The first part of this program pasteurizes the milk while the second part incubates the cultures.

Different Instant Pot models will hold different amounts of milk at one time. Most hold around 4 liters. As far as the process is concerned, there are two different methods that you can try, so we will look at them one at a time.

Using the Inner Pot Method

1. Use your Instant Pot’s inner pot. First, make sure it is scrupulously clean as any food remnants will spoil the flavor of the milk.
2. Put the raw, strained milk inside and insert the pot into the cooker’s base.
3. Close the lid.
4. Choose the “Yogurt” function option to select the yogurt smart program. and tap on the “Adjust” button.
5. Press “Yogurt” again to cycle to the “More” option. The display should show “Boil”.
6. The pot will begin heating after ten seconds.
7. When the pot beeps and shows “Yogurt” on the display, the pasteurization has started, and milk will be ready when the Instant Pot beeps again. The display will show “End”.
8. The lid can now be removed.
9. It is a good idea to check the milk temperature with a thermometer at this point to ensure the milk did reach a high enough temperature to pasteurize it.
10. If you were making yogurt, at this point you’d add the starter culture but for our purposes, we are now done.
11. You may now decant the milk into sterilized storage bottles.

Using the Bottle Method

1. Begin by adding one cup of water to the Instant Pot’s inner pot and put a steaming rack into the pot.
2. Put the raw milk into clean glass bottles and stand them up on the rack.
3. Choose the “Steam” function.
4. Set the timer for one minute after which time allow the steam to be released naturally.

If you are using the Instant Pot Ultra or IP-DUO Plus, you will need to select the “Sterilize” option and select the “Less” button. This step will help heat the milk to a specific temperature.

Once the milk is pasteurized, you need to cool it down. We suggest you use the cold bath method for cooling the pasteurized milk.

The cold bath method is quite easy as you can simply put the milk bottles into the kitchen sink filled with cold water. Keep in mind that milk should be cooled down quickly so you can add some ice to the water bath.

As soon as the milk is cool, refrigerate it.

Things to Remember while Pasteurizing Milk with the Instant Pot

As you can see, an Instant Pot can be used for pasteurizing milk, and it is a convenient choice. However, there are a few things that you need to remember, such as:

• You should always pasteurize milk as soon as you get it home. This will prevent spoilage and bacterial proliferation.
• Using an Instant Pot to pasteurize the milk will not lower the nutritional profile of the milk.
• You can only use Instant Pots that have to sterilize or yogurt-making features to pasteurize milk.
• You should cool down the pasteurized milk as soon as possible in an ice-water bath.
• Make sure you store the cooled, pasteurized milk in the refrigerator and use it within a few days.

To Summarize

Some models of Instant Pot can be safely used to pasteurize milk.