Abstract

HERNANDEZ MONZON, Aldo; VEGA ROBAINA, Yunaisi  and  DIAZ ABREU, Julio A.. Technological efficiency of the Lunch type cheese in relation with the curd cutting moment. RTQ [online]. 2020, vol.40, n.1, pp. 106-117. ISSN 2224-6185.

In the cheese-making practice the decision of the curd cutting moment is still done according to the cheese-maker's empiric criteria, which involves a lack of process control standardization and low technological efficiency indicators. The instrumental method, with the portable plane angle penetrometer, allows deciding the optimal curd cutting moment. This work´s objective was to evaluate the technological efficiency in the Lunch type cheese production in relation to the curd firmness at the cutting moment, decided by the empiric way or instrumentally at the optimum. In this research several industrial productions (with 3 500 L of processed milk) were analyzed, determining in milk its fundamental quality indicators (total solids and fat content, density and the test of “metilen blue reduction time”). To the obtained cheeses were determined the total solids and fat content, as well as the mass or weight; the technological efficiency indicators (cheese yield and recovering of milk fat and total solids) were calculated. The observed results were: those productions in which the curd cutting moment was decided by the empiric way (cheese-maker's criteria) had mean cheese yield of 9.29%, total solids recovering 41.50% and fat recovering 68.60%; otherwise, those productions in which the cutting curd started at the measured optimum firmness had yields of 10.69% and recovering till 45.0 and 81.4% respectively. It was proved that the instrumental method, used in deciding the curd cutting moment at the optimal firmness, notably improves the efficiency indicators, conducting to favorable economic effect.

Keywords : technological efficiency; lunch type cheese; curd and cutting moment; instrumental method.

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