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Comment by akamaka | Hacker News Reader

This article is very out-dated.

Some organic milk brands nowadays are actually using very low temperature pasteurization, which heats the milk to 63°C for 30 minutes. It’s more expensive but considered to have a much better flavor.

https://www.thekitchn.com/what-is-vat-pasteurized-milk-16743...

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Yes, this is the only kind I buy but even better is High Pressure Processing. This pasteurizes the milk with pressure rather than heat preserving all the desirable properties of raw milk without any of the risks. There is a company in Australia (Made By Cow) selling this kind of milk but it does not seem to have spread to other countries yet.

Sounds promising! I hadn’t heard of this before, but apparently it has recently been approved for use in Canada, so hopefully dairies here will give it a try.

Yep, usually that‘s called ESL (extended shelf life) method which I think has come about only 10-15 years ago. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5704146/

Edit: In fact it was developed in 1996 but replaced much of pasteurized milk between 2005 and 2008 in Europe. Maybe it was a little bit later in the US? https://me-trading.de/what-is-esl-milk-a-comprehensive-guide...

ESL is a whole different beast than pasteurization. It comes in two major versions: Microfiltration or a heating akin to UHT but shorter and at a lower temperature (127 °C vs 150 °C). Microfiltration won't change the taste, heating will. Microfiltration may be combined with pasteurization (heating to around 72 °C) to inactivate enzymes which may affect shelf life.

Pasteurized milk will keep for 5 to 7 days, while ESL milk can keep for 12 to 21 days in the unopened container.

I think that’s something different from what I’m describing, since it’s higher temperature than the HTST that’s typical in North America. UHT milk never became very popular in North America, so I’m not to what extent ESL has been introduced.

I think it breaks down like this:

* Vat-pasteurized (63°C/30min)

* HTST (71°C/15sec)

* ESL (123°C/5sec)

* UHT (135°C/2sec)

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