A study on Effect of Pasteurization Temperature on the Functional Properties of Mozzarella Cheese Processed From Cow’s Milk

Abstract

Mozzarella Cheese is a soft, plastic cheese typical of Italy and of notable economic relevance because of the steady rise in its production and consumption. It is mainly produced from Buffalo milk, and a higher amount of Mozzarella Cheese is been imported to Sri Lanka which costs a high amount. Also about 30% of the annual production of cow’s milk is being wasted without utilizing. This situation implies, the need for producing Mozzarella Cheese with cow’s milk. Attempts were made to develop Mozzarella Cheese from cow’s milk with optimum functional properties. Mozzarella Cheese is characterized by the melting and stretching properties, where they are of great importance when using as pizza toppings. These functional properties may vary due to various processing steps during Mozzarella Cheese manufacture. Hence the study was carried out to investigate, whether there is an effect of pasteurization temperature on these functional properties. The analyses was basically focused on three pasteurization time temperature combinations namely 62 °C for 30 min, 72°C for 5s, and 80°C for 2s. According to the results, no difference was found between the three pasteurization temperatures on the stretching property, but found a difference in melting property. The difference was with the 80°C for 2 sec pasteurization time temperature combination. The gel electrophoresis analysis clearly showed the phenomena of the co-precipitation of the casein molecules, at higher pasteurization temperatures. Upon the analysis of produced Mozzarella Cheese, treated with the three pasteurization temperatures on the chemical and microbiological properties, slight changes were found in the three samples on chemical properties, which states that there is an effect on the chemical properties. But no difference was found in microbiological properties. Comparing the produced Mozzarella Cheese with commercially available Mozzarella Cheese .was also another scope of the study .It was found that the organoleptic properties and the appearance "was almost the same, but the stretching ability was half with compared to the commercial product. Hence further studies should be carried out to find quality improvement,. sensory analyses and microbial safety of the product and find the nutritional losses during processing at the three different pasteurization time temperature combinations.