1. ABSTRACT 2.

INTRODUCTION

Cheese, which has been produced for more than 5000 years, is a generic name for a group of fermented base milk products and is often considered to be one of the most diverse group of dairy product. Unlike many other foods, cheese contains complex bacterial ecosystem which causes it to be biologically and biochemically dynamic and hence, unstable. The presence of the complex bacterial ecosystem also causes cheese to change during maturation due to series of biochemical transformations that leads them to consequently undergo changes in texture, taste and aroma. If these changes are synchronized and balanced, it will lead to products with desirable aromas, flavours and textures but however, products with off-flavors and off-odors will be produced if these changes are unbalanced. There are a wide range of different scientific disciplines that are involved in the production of cheese, such as protein chemistry, microbiology, the chemistry and biochemistry of milk constituents, enzymology, flavour genetics, flavour chemistry and rheology. This is why, many scientist from all over the world have become very interested and involved in the study of cheese manufacture and ripening.

The basic ingredients that are used in cheese production are milk from various mammals such as cows and goats, starter cultures, enzyme rennet and salt. There are two main methods of cheese production. The first one is by acidifying the milk, and addition of the enzyme rennet that causes the coagulation of the milk, and the second one is by adding acids such as vinegar or lime juice which causes the curdling of the milk. This process will be described more in this report later on. Although the production of different types of cheese involves a generally similar process, it is amazing how different the products can be. One of the reason behind these differences is that cheeses are known to be a product of its environment and thus, the styles, textures and flavours of the cheese depends quite greatly on the origin of the milk that were used. The cheese produced in different parts of the world are different to one another and can not be reproduced elsewhere as the animals that are the origin of the milk used in the cheese production are exposed to different type of foods, nutrients, climate changes and a lot of other different environmental factors. Cheese can be eaten raw, or use in cooking and can be really beneficial if it is included in a persons daily diet. This is due to the fact that cheese have most of the important nutrients in milk, such as proteins, calcium, phosphorus and saturated fat, but without its failings. Other than cheese having a much longer shelf life and better portability, milk contains a very high moisture content, which contributes to its instability which makes it much easier for pathogenic bacteria to contaminate and grow in a milk culture compared to cheese. Therefore, although some raw milk is still consumed, processing is necessary to convert milk into safer and more stable products, such as cheese.

3. CHEESE PRODUCTION PROCESS 3.1 : SELECTION AND PRE-TREATMENT OF CHEESE MILK 3.1.1: Selection of milk The composition of cheese milk highly influence the composition of cheese as the content of fat, protein , calcium and its pH are different. This differences are mainly due to differences in the species, breed, nutritional status, health and the state of lactation of the producing animal. To avoid off-flavours in the cheese product, the milk used should be free from chemical taints and fatty acids. The milk should also be in good microbiological quality to avoid any defects or public health problems as the contaminating bacteria will be highly concentrated in the cheese curd. 3.1.2: Standardization of milk The fat:protein ratio is different in different cheese, which is determined by the fat:casein ratio in the cheese milk used. This ratio can however be modified to give the desired ratio by removing some of the fat via natural creaming adding skim milk or cream adding milk powder, evaporated milk or using low concentration factor ultra-filtration. ( this method will result in an increase in the total solid content of milk and hence, a higher cheese yield) Calcium plays a major role in the coagulation of milk by rennet, therefore addition of CaCl2 to cheese milk as a source of calcium is an important step . Lastly, the pH of milk also varies as the pH increases with advancing lactation and during mastitic infection. The desired pH can be obtained by using either acidogen, gluconic acid--lactone or by using a starter culture. A starter culture is a quality of milk to which selected bacteria has been added , and its purpose is to convert milk sugar to lactic acid and hence, altering the pH level. This starter culture usually resembles yoghurt or buttermilk in terms of flavor and texture and is usually added 30-60 minutes before the rennet addition to allow the ripening process to take place. Ripening is the process where the starter bacteria are allowed to grow to enter its growth phase so that they are highly active during the actual cheese making process. This process is important because rennet action and gel formation is much more favourable in lower pH level.

3.1.3 : Heat treatment of milk

The use of raw milk in cheese production is undesirable as it may contain several spoilage and undesirable microorganisms which may pose dangers to public health and may cause defects in the flavours and textures of the product. Pasteurization is a process of heating a liquid to a specific temperature for a definite length of time and the cooling it immediately. This process is important to reduce the number of pathogenic microorganisms in raw milk and hence, decreasing the chances of food poisoning , increasing the public health and also increasing the consistency of cheese produced. However, there is a significant difference between the cheese made from raw and from pasteurized milk, mainly due to the heat treatment to the raw milk causes the killing of indigenous microorganisms inactivation of milk enzymes such as lipoprotein lipase partial denaturation of whey proteins