Instructional Equipment: Division of Food, Fermentation and Culinary Production

Facilities Department · Sub-Level Shop · ext. 2120

Kitchens 1–3. Gas ranges, two convection ovens, a 40-gallon steam-jacketed kettle, a 60-quart mixer, a tilting skillet, walk-in cooler and freezer, three-compartment sinks throughout.

Fermentation Cellar. Below Kitchen 2. Temperature-logged continuously since 2011; the log is a strip chart with a digital backup, and the strip chart is retained because it has never failed. Twelve 50-gallon fermentation vessels, food-grade HDPE, with airlock and weight systems. A brine mixing station. Bench pH and titratable acidity apparatus; the bench pH meter is calibrated before each use against two buffers and the calibration is recorded by hand in a bound log.

Dairy. A 30-gallon vat pasteurizer, a cream separator, and three churns: a barrel churn (1961, original to the Institute), a dash churn, and a paddle churn. The barrel churn is the item most often photographed by visitors.

Photography Bay. Adjacent to Kitchen 3. A 4×5 view camera on a studio stand, three medium-format bodies, and a full Speedotron pack-and-head lighting kit acquired in 1997 and still the primary studio lighting. Six softboxes, two strip banks, a boom. A copy stand. A tethered digital back was added in 2014 for students who require it; the College notes that the lighting, the stand, and the discipline are the instruction, and that the capture medium is the least of it.

The color darkroom adjacent to the Bay is believed to be the last in Tolliver County. It is maintained in working order and is used in one unit of PHO 180. Chemistry is mixed as needed.

Equipment for all divisions is listed at Instructional Equipment. The capital equipment request is published at Capital Equipment Request.