Viscoelastic behavior during the ripening of a commercial low-fat soft cheese

MEZA, BARBARA ERICA; VERDINI, ROXANA ANDREA; RUBIOLO, AMELIA CATALINA

DAIRY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

EDP Sciences

Año: 2010 vol. 90 p. 589 - 599

1958-5586

The change in the viscoelastic behavior over ripening of a commercial low-fat soft cheese wasinvestigated. Twelve low-fat soft cheeses which contained microparticulated whey proteins as fatmimetics (Simplesse®) were obtained from a local factory and stored at 6 C. Three of these cheeses were sampled at 1, 21, 48 and 76 days of ripening. Physicochemical properties such as pH, moisture content, salt concentration and maturation index were determined. Frequency sweeps were performed in the range of 0.01-10 Hz at 20 C and the region of linear viscoelasticity was determined by performing stress sweeps. Frequency dependence of elastic and viscous moduli was modeled using the power-law and Maxwell equations. The initial moisture content was 52.80+/-0.46% and did not change significantly during ripening. Salt concentration on day 1 was 0.41+/-0.01% and increased significantly during maturation. The pH decreased from 5.27+/-0.03 on day 1 to 5.11+/-0.03 by day 48 while the maturation index increased from 3.60+/-0.67 on day 1 to 8.66+/-1.05% by day 48. Low-fat soft cheese containing whey proteins behaved as a linear viscoelastic material during dynamic testingat stresses below 630 Pa. In general, viscoelastic parameters derived from both models decreased with ripening time and at the same kinetic rate, showing that ripening contributed to changes in the structure of the cheese matrix. Rheological and physicochemical properties were correlated using one of the parameters derived from the power-law model and results indicated that correlations improved when maturation index was included in the model.