Effect of packing pH values on the crumbliness of fresh Turkish White cheese

摘要

A significant amount of Turkish White cheese is stillproduced in 1-kg cheese blocks and distributed to retailstores and farmers markets in 18-kg tin containers withbrine. Portioning the cheese for the customer’s desiredweight requires a slicing process. The crumbs that occurduring cutting or portioning are undesirable forcustomers and can cause economic loss for the business.In this study, our goal was to investigate the sliceabilityof White cheese that was manufactured at various finalpacking (i.e., packing with brine) pH values (5.3, 5.0,4.7). For this purpose, we manufactured 4 batches ofcheese at different times from high heat–treated milk(78°C, 8 min) and monitored the chemical and texturalproperties at 1, 2, 4, and 8 wk. Cheeses that werepacked at pH 4.7 were harder compared with cheesesthat were packed at pH 5.0 and 5.3. No correlationwas observed between cheese-packing pH values andthe size of the crumbs; however, there was a significantnegative correlation between packing pH and crumbweight (i.e., decrease in cheese-packing pH increasedthe crumb weight). Cheeses packed at pH 5.0 and 5.3exhibited increased slicing adhesiveness during storage.All cheese samples exhibited similar colloidal calciumphosphate levels and water-soluble nitrogen valuesduring storage. This study showed that an increase inthe packing pH of White cheese reduced the weight ofcrumbs that occurred during cutting. This study is thefirst study to investigate crumbs occurring with slicingin White cheese. This is also the first study in the literaturethat monitored the colloidal calcium phosphatecontent of Turkish White cheese.