Cheese ripening: an overview of technological strategies towards process acceleration

VÉLEZ M. A.; WOLF, IRMA V.; BERGAMINI, C. V; PERALTA, GUILLERMO H.; PEROTTI M. C.

Handbook of cheese chemistry

Royal Society of Chemistry

Año: 2023; p. 1 - 33

Cheese is one of the fermented foods characterized by its many different flavour, texture andaroma. Ripening is a crucial technological step in cheese manufacturing, constituting a cascadeof biochemical events that confer unique sensory attributes, which demands long period timesdepending on the cheese variety. This chapter will deal with the identification of technologicalstrategies designed to accelerate cheese ripening by means of ripening profiles9 studies andsensory characterization. Therefore, we will review the current knowledge of the principalcontributions: physical treatments applied to cheese-milk or to the final product, the use ofexogenous enzymes and the design of primary and adjunct starters. Particularly, we will focuson its applications on hard and semi hard cheeses, for which a slow ripening period is necessaryto achieve the desired product quality.