Elsevier

LWT

Volume 110, August 2019, Pages 292-298
LWT

Effect of ultra-high pressure homogenisation of cream on the physicochemical and sensorial characteristics of fat-reduced starter-free fresh cheeses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2019.04.096Get rights and content

Highlights

  • UHPH of cream increase fresh cheese yield.

  • Addition of UHPH-cream with sodium caseinate improved the increase of cheese yield.

  • Use of UHPH-cream with sodium caseinate improved reduced-fat fresh cheeses.

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the incorporation of cream treated by ultra-high pressure homogenisation (UHPH) on the physicochemical and sensorial characteristics of fat-reduced fresh cheeses. Light creams treated by UHPH at 300 MPa with or without addition of 1.5 g/100 g sodium caseinate were compared to conventionally treated creams (batch pasteurisation at 65 °C for 30 min or homogenisation at 15 MPa followed by pasteurisation). Reduced-fat cheeses were obtained mixing treated creams with skim milk until 1.5 g/100 g fat, while milk at 3.2 g/100 g were used to made full-fat cheeses. The reduction of fat content of pasteurised cheese-making milk decreased cheese yield by 23%. These cheeses presented greater hardness, elasticity, cohesiveness, gumminess and chewability than full-fat cheeses. However, homogenisation of cream increased cheese yield by 5 and 13% with conventional treatment and UHPH, respectively. The addition of sodium caseinate before UHPH treatment increased cheese yield by 22%, as a consequence of their water retention capacity, obtaining similar values as for full-fat cheeses. These cheeses, which were the most valued on the scale of preference and described as more watery by panellists, were less hard, elastic, cohesive, gummy and chewy than their fat-reduced counterparts, with values similar to full-fat cheeses.

Introduction

The fresh cheese is a very nutritious food with a very similar composition to milk, highlighting the high biological value of proteins, calcium, phosphorus and some vitamins. However, fresh cheeses contain fats ranging from 18 to 29 g/100 g (Hwang & Gunasekaran, 2001), with saturated fatty acids, which negatively affect consumer health. In Western populations and elsewhere, there is a growing demand for reduced-fat dairy products, including cheeses (Banks, 2004), because of the rising rates of obesity, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, and injury diseases of tissues associated with milk fat (Grosso, 2017).

Unfortunately, fat reduction usually provokes deficiencies in texture, aroma and flavour of cheeses (Sipahioglu, Alvarez, & Solano-Lopez, 1999), being less appetising and with lower yields than cheeses made with whole milk (Rodríguez, 1998). These undesirable effects can be remedied through three main strategies: modification of cheese-making technologies, use of adjunct cultures or addition of fat substitutes (Drake & Swanson, 1995).

The use of homogenisation of creams as a processing tool for the improvement of reduced in fat or partially skimmed cheeses has been studied for Cheddar (Metzger & Mistry, 1994, 1995), Mozzarella (Poduval & Mistry, 1999; Rudan, Barbano, Guo, & Kindstedt, 1998), Iranian and Turkish white cheeses (Karaman & Akalın, 2013; Madadlou, Mousavi, Khosrowshahi asl, Emam-Djome, & Zargaran, 2007). This technology was mainly used to increase yield and speed up lipid hydrolysis (Madadlou et al., 2007), allowing the reduction of fat losses in whey (Karaman & Akalın, 2013; Metzger & Mistry, 1994).

Ultra-high homogenisation pressure (UHPH) is a non-thermal treatment based on the same principles as conventional homogenisation (Zamora & Guamis, 2015). The different geometry of the reaction chamber allows reaching pressures of 10–15 times superior to the classic homogenisers (Donsì, Annunziata, & Ferrari, 2013). Currently, the seats and needles of UHPH valves are being built in ceramic or coated with artificial diamond (Dumay et al., 2013). When the fluid passes through the valve, it is subjected to shear, cavitation and turbulence (Donsì et al., 2013), resulting in homogenised fluid heating (Floury, Legrand, & Desrumaux, 2004; Thiebaud, Dumay, Picart, Guiraud, & Cheftel, 2003). Its main effects are the reduction of particle size, the stabilization of emulsions, the improvement of the extraction of metabolites and the inactivation of microorganisms and enzymes to levels similar or superior to pasteurization with a concomitant reduction of microbial load (Dumay et al., 2013; Zamora & Guamis, 2015). Few studies have been carried out in order to evaluate the potential of UHPH as an alternative treatment for the production of cheese (Trujillo, Roig-Sagués, Zamora, & Ferragut, 2016). This technology was useful in increasing yield and cheese moisture, as well as improving sensory properties, by reducing syneresis during storage and improving the microbiological quality of cheeses (Escobar et al., 2011; Zamora, Ferragut, Juan, Guamis, & Trujillo, 2011; Zamora, Ferragut, Quevedo, Guamis, & Trujillo, 2012).

The improvement of cheese-making properties of milk by UHPH has been attributed to changes in milk proteins and fat due to the combined effect of heat and homogenisation (Zamora, Ferragut, Guamis, & Trujillo, 2012; Zamora, Ferragut, Quevedo, et al., 2012). In the case of the present study, the idea was to modify the characteristics of elaborated cheeses by reducing only milk fat globules with UHPH. Thus, the objective was to study the effect of incorporating UHPH-treated cream into skimmed milk, as compared to creams treated by conventional treatments, on the physicochemical and sensorial characteristics of starter-free fresh cheeses reduced in fat.

Section snippets

Milk supply and cream treatments

Fresh raw whole bovine milk was obtained from a local dairy farm (SAT 5717 Can Badó, Santa Agnès de Malanyanes, Barcelona, Spain) and separated into cream and skimmed milk with a centrifugal separator (Seital SE 02.0 V, 500 L h−1, Santorso VI, Italy). The obtained skimmed milk was pasteurised at 74 °C for 15 s in a plate pasteuriser (500 L h−1, F Garvía, Barcelona) and was used in order to standardise untreated light cream at 20% fat before applying treatments.

UHPH treatment of light cream (UH)

Physicochemical analyses and cheese yields

The treatments carried out on the cream did not vary the pH of the obtained cheeses, showing values of 6.50–6.67 (Table 1). Similar pH values were obtained by Hernando (1998) with Burgos cheeses and Zamora, Ferragut, Quevedo, Guamis, and Trujillo (2012) with starter-free fresh cheeses.

Cheeses reduced in fat presented higher humidity and protein content than full-fat cheeses, obviously due to the lower amount of fat (Table 1). Similar results were described for low-fat Feta cheese (Katsiari &

Conclusion

This study shows that adding cream treated by UHPH together with sodium caseinate in cheese-making milk resulted in fat-reduced fresh cheeses with sensory attributes similar to cheeses made with whole milk. The obtained results point out the potential of UHPH technology to produce nutritionally and sensorially improved reduced-in-fat cheeses and obtaining higher yields compared to conventional homogenisation treatment.

Acknowledgement

The author Jhony Mayta gratefully acknowledges the financial support given by the PRONABEC(Per) Fellowship program.

References (47)

  • N. Koca et al.

    Textural, melting and sensory properties of low-fat fresh kashar cheeses produced by using fat replacers

    International Dairy Journal

    (2004)
  • C. Lobato-Calleros et al.

    Structural and textural characteristics of reduced-fat cheese-like products made from W1/O/W2 emulsions and skim milk

    Lebensmittel-Wissenschaft und -Technologie- Food Science and Technology

    (2008)
  • L. Lteif et al.

    The characterization of the physicochemical and sensory properties of full-fat, reduced-fat, and low-fat ovine and bovine Halloumi

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (2009)
  • A. Madadlou et al.

    Effect of cream homogenization on textural characteristics of low-fat Iranian White cheese

    International Dairy Journal

    (2007)
  • L.E. Metzger et al.

    A new approach using homogenization of cream in the manufacture of reduced fat cheddar cheese. 1. Manufacture, composition, and yield

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1994)
  • L.E. Metzger et al.

    A new approach using homogenization of cream in the manufacture of reduced fat cheddar cheese. 2. Microestructure, fat globule distribution, and free oil

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1995)
  • H.W. Modler

    Functional properties of nonfat dairy ingredients - a review. Modification of products containing casein

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1985)
  • V.S. Poduval et al.

    Manufacture of reduced fat Mozzarella cheese using ultrafiltered sweet buttermilk and homogenized cream

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1999)
  • D. Rodarte et al.

    Effect of ultra-high pressure homogenization on cream: Shelf life and physicochemical characteristics

    Lebensmittel-Wissenschaft und -Technologie- Food Science and Technology

    (2018)
  • J. Rodríguez

    Recent advances in the development of low-fat cheeses

    Trends in Food Science and Technology

    (1998)
  • M.A. Rudan et al.

    Effect of the modification of fat particle size by homogenization on composition, proteolysis, functionality, and appearance of reduced fat Mozzarella cheese

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1998)
  • M.A. Rudan et al.

    Effect of fat reduction on chemical composition, proteolysis, functionality, and yield of Mozzarella cheese

    Journal of Dairy Science

    (1999)
  • O. Sipahioglu et al.

    Structure, physico-chemical and sensory properties of feta cheese made with tapioca starch and lecithin as fat mimetics

    International Dairy Journal

    (1999)
  • Cited by (11)

    • Effect of supercritical carbon dioxide on bacterial community, volatile profiles and quality changes during storage of Mongolian cheese

      2023, Food Control
      Citation Excerpt :

      In addition, SC-CO2 is a kind of lipid solvent (Kapoor et al., 2021). Extraction of fat by SC-CO2 might also contribute to the increased hardness and chewiness in the samples (Mayta-Hancco, Trujillo, Zamora, & Juan, 2019). According to Table 1, hardness and chewiness of C2 were lower than those of C1 (p < 0.05); and hardness and chewiness of S2 were also lower than S1 (p < 0.05), which could be attributed to proteolysis and fat precipitation of the Mongolian cheese during storage, destroying the protein network structure (Lu et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2021); and thereby leading to the decreases in hardness and chewiness of the cheese samples.

    • Thermosonicated whey protein concentrate blends on quality attributes of reduced fat Panela cheese

      2021, Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
      Citation Excerpt :

      On the other hand, the process-based approaches include modifications of the standard cheese make procedures (including the use of adjunct cultures, accelerated acidification, reduced curd cooking temperature, increased stirring time, reduced salt concentration) or the application of selected nonthermal technologies to cheesemilk or to some cheese ingredients to modify RFC and LFC characteristics [4]. As such, Mayta-Hancco et al [20] evaluated the addition of cream treated by high-pressure homogenization to skim milk with or without sodium caseinate to produce RFC. Cheeses with pressure-treated cream and sodium caseinate exhibited an increased yield and improved textural characteristics and sensory acceptability compared to their untreated reduced fat alternatives.

    • Microbiological, physicochemical, textural characteristics and oxidative stability of butter produced from high-pressure homogenisation treated cream at different pressures

      2020, International Dairy Journal
      Citation Excerpt :

      Moreover, HPH treatment at 50–250 MPa has been commonly used in the dairy industry for microbial inactivation (Hayes et al., 2005; Kheadr, Vachon, Paquin, & Fliss, 2002; Thiebaud et al., 2003). For dairy products, HPH has been used to improve powder flow properties of milk powder (Mercan et al., 2018a), to reduce microbial counts of milk concentrates (Mercan, Sert, & Akın, 2018b), to improve emulsion stability of dairy beverages (Martínez-Monteagudo et al., 2017), to increase shelf life of cream (Rodarte, Zamora, Trujillo, & Juan, 2018), to encapsulate probiotic bacteria of fermented milk (Patrignani et al., 2017), to improve reduced-fat fresh cheese (Mayta-Hancco, Trujillo, Zamora, & Juan, 2019), to develop consistency and reduce syneresis of yogurt (Serra, Trujillo, Guamis, & Ferragut, 2009), and to reduce melting of ice cream (Huppertz, Smiddy, Goff, & Kelly, 2011). Several studies on the usage of HPH in the dairy industry have been reported.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text