Lime and Mango Juice as Coagulants for Soft Cheese Made from Fresh or Reconstituted Milk

Abstract

In order to simplify the cheese-making process and find suitable alternatives to sodom apple as coagulant, cheese was prepared from fresh and reconstituted milk using lime and mango juice as coagulants. Treatments correspond to fresh milk coagulated with lime (FML), reconstituted milk coagulated with lime (RML), fresh milk coagulated with mango (FMM), reconstituted milk coagulated with mango (RMM). Chemical composition of cheese varied significantly across the treatments. Total solids was 49.9, 43.4, 49.6 and 42.1%; protein was 20.6, 18.1, 21.6 and18.9%; while fat content was 22.4, 19.7, 21.6 and 17.9% for FML, RML, FMM and RMM respectively. Protein and fat content of cheese made from fresh milk was higher than that from reconstituted milk. Mango-precipitated cheese had higher protein than lime-precipitated cheese while lime-precipitated cheese had higher fat content than mango-precipitated cheese. Cheese yield varied from 11- 16% with lime-precipitated cheese having higher yields than mango-precipitated cheese, and fresh milk yielding more cheese than reconstituted milk. Acceptability scores were 7.1, 7.1, 7.1 and 6.6 for FML, RML, FMM and RMM respectively on a scale of 1-9. Except for RMM which had a significantly lower score, there were no significant differences in acceptability for FML, RML and FMM. When compared with wara cheese purchased from the open market, lime and mango-precipitated cheese generally had better consumer acceptance than wara (acceptability score of 6.7).   These results show that lime and mango juice can serve as suitable alternatives to sodom apple juice as coagulants for fresh cheese. Reconstituted milk can also be used for making cheese where availability of fresh milk is limited.

Keywords: fresh cheese, coagulants, lime, mango, milk