Evaluation of Cheese Quality Using Graded Level of Different Plant Extracts as Milk Coagulant

ABSTRACT

Cheese was prepared in a small scale at the Department of Agricultural technology Laboratory Kwara State polytechnic Ilorin, Kwara State and analysis of some parameter was carried out on evaluation of cheese quality using graded levels of different plant extracts as coagulant such as C.procera, C.papaya and lime fruit juice. The Parameters analyzed for were, Weight of the cheese, Colour of the cheese, pH of the whey, Time of coagulation, Texture of the cheese Taste of the cheese and Palatability of the cheese.

At the end of the experiment, it was concluded that lime fruit juice can best be use as coagulant in the production of cheese. The use of lime as milk coagulant gives the best cheese out of the three coagulants used. Although other two coagulants did almost equally well.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0   INTRODUCTION

The word cheese is derived from Latin word Cascus from which the modern word casein is also derived. Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk based food products.

Cheese is produced in wide ranging flavours, texture and forms (Fankhause, 2007).

Cheese consists of proteins and fat from milk usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goat or sheep. It is produced by coagulation of the milk protein. Typically the milk is acidified and addition of the enzyme (rennet) or using lemon juice or vinegar causes coagulation.

The solid are separated and pressed into final form (Fankhauser, 2007).

Hundred of types of cheese are produced, their styles, textures and flavour depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal diet) whether they have been pasteurized, the butter fat content, the bacteria and molds the processing and aging.

Herbs, spices or wood smoke may be use as flavouring agent. The yellow to red colour of many cheeses, such as red Leicester, is formed from adding ammalto (U.S Code of Federal regulation, 2006).

Cheese is value for its portability, long life and high content of fat, protein, calcium and phosphorus, cheese is more compact and has a long  shelf life than milk, although how long a cheese will keep may depend on the typed of cheese (History of cheese accessed 2007/06/10).

1.1   HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF CHEESE

The need for milk as a source of food has been felt ever since man became aware of the necessary nutrient in the milk. In the primitive ages, the proposed date for the origin of cheese making range from around 8000BCE (when sheep was first domesticated) to around 3000BCE. The first cheese may have been made by people in the Middle East or by nomadic Turkish tribe in Central Asia. Since animal skin and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provide storage vessels for a range of food stuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach of animal.

         The cheese-making may have begun independently of this by the pressing and salting of curdled milk to prevent it. (History of cheese accessed, 2007). The notable observation that the effect of making milk in an animal stomach gave more solid and better–textured curds may have led to the deliberate addition of rennet (Jenny, 1967).