Soft Cheese Production

Abstract

The soft cheese studies was cottage cheese, a high nutritional value, low calories and mild flavor product. The objective of this study was to optimize the production conditions and scale-up production for the local market. Fresh skim milk was pasteurized at 74±1^oC for 3 min, cooled to 32±2^oC, then 7% (w/w) starter was added. After titratable acidity of milk reached 0.32±0.02%, 0.015 g. rennet per 100 kg milk was added and mixed well. When curd formed and acidity reached 0.52±0.02%, curd was cut into ¼ inches cube and cooked at 65^oC for 150 min, wheyed off, curd then was washed with 3 successive cold waters (22±2, 12±2 and 4±2^oC). The resulted curd was good in appearance, odor, flavor, texture and acceptance. When scaled up the production to 15 kg, with the same conditions, the product had similar quality with 14 days shelflife at 10±1^oC. Additon of 20% strawberry and 25% pineapple in syrup increased the shelf-life at 10±1^oC to 19 and 17 days, respectively. Preference test of the taste panelists increased from 57% (plain cottage cheese) to 74-76%. Skim milk with higher total solid (TS) contents (16%), ie., recombined, evaporated and skim milk added with skim milk powder gave higher yield than the 8.62% TS skim milk, without significant difference (P>0.01) in qualities, except the recombined which was poor in appearance.