Influence of defined and natural wild thermophilic cultures in proteolysis of Reggianito Argentino hard cooked cheese

ERICA HYNES; CARLOS ANTONIO ZALAZAR; PAUL MCSWEENEY

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF DAIRY TECHNOLOGY

DIAA (Dairy Industry Association of Australia)

Año: 2005 vol. 60 p. 259 - 263

0004-9433

Reggianito Argentino is a hard cooked cheese, which is normally produced with natural “wild” whey cultures. In the present work, we compared proteolysis during the ripening of cheeses made with natural whey cultures and defined mixed or single strain cultures of Lactobacillus helveticus (SF133, 138 and 139). For that purpose, we performed RP-HPLC of ethanol (70%)- soluble and insoluble fractions   of the cheese and analysed levels of free amino acids. Principal component and non-hierarchical cluster analyses were applied to chromatographic and free amino acid data and samples were classified into three clusters with increasing proteolysis. Cheese produced with strains of Lactobacillus helveticus 133-138 was placed in the group with lowest proteolysis, while cheese manufactured with strains 209-138 was in the group with highest proteolysis. The remainder of the cheeses were placed in the intermediate cluster or in the group with highest proteolysis, depending on the index of proteolysis studied. Control cheese and cheese made with the three strain starter (133-138-139) were always placed in the same cluster, which indicates that Reggianito Argentino can be produced with this defined starter culture without changes to its patterns of proteolysis.