Monday, January 6, 2014

Winter Woes: Keeping your milk from freezing this winter!

You may have noticed frozen and/or cracked glass bottles in your most recent delivery! Why? Due to the extremely low temperatures (record breaking, in fact) your milk has frozen and has caused the glass bottle to bust. Let's examine the reasoning:



WHY:
1. Glass is considered a brittle solid. Brittle is defined by dictionary.com as, "having hardness and rigidity but little tensile strength; breaking readily with a comparatively smooth fracture, as glass." This means that, when pressure is applied, glass will break before it bends. In the case of excess force to your milk bottle, a crack would be foreseeable.

2.Glass also fluctuates (only slightly) during temperature change. Significant temperature changes (like running a recently used coffee pot under cold water) causes these fluctuations. 

3.The expansion of liquid or material inside of a glass product (due to freezing) causes increased pressure against the glass walls. It is recommend to only fill a glass bottle 90% (or less) full to accommodate for expansion. SMC fills milk bottles completely full, however, which leaves no room for the bottle to expand! The excess force  from increased stress is the number once cause of SMC glass bottle breakage.



HOW TO PREVENT IT: 
Preventing bottle breakage is easy! Simply remove your products from your cooler soon after they are delivered. The only method to reduce/eliminate fractured milk bottles is to react before it can happen. Too harsh of temperature change can also busy glass, so do not add any heated items to your porch box/cooler

Making Milk Part of Your New Year Resolution



What's in a resolution?

Make a resolution you can actually stick with! Start the New Year with South Mountain Creamery home delivery!

As a vertically integrated dairy processing plant, we understand the importance of healthy eating, local agriculture, and knowing where your food comes from. Wholesome and true ingredients are the only asset to our glass bottled milk, butters, yogurts, meats, ice creams, and more. With over 9,000 active home delivery customers - we know our customer's needs: convenience, a true and whole product, and a family-style relationship. All are benefits of receiving home delivery! You can also expect:

1. No sign up fee & no minimum order
2. Supportive and friendly staff
3. A convenient and flexible delivery (weekly, bi-weekly, once monthly, etc)
4. A true "field to fork" operation
5. Over 500 options: dairy, meat, eggs, snacks, drinks, products from local vendors, ice cream ,etc)
6. Family atmosphere: visit 365 days a year to take a self-guided or guided tour
7. A healthier product: NO ANTIBIOTICS, NO GROWTH HORMONES, NO PESTICIDES
8. Responsive feedback to suggestions
9. Weekly specials, discounts, and features!
10. Annual Festivals & other social gatherings
11. A presence in numerous restaurants, bakeries, and shops throughout DC, WV, MD, VA, & PA!\
12. Experienced milkmen

And much more! Signing up for service is easy. Simply log on to http://www.southmountaincreamery.com and click "sign up here."