Monitoring the Chemical and Microbiological Changes During Ripening of Iranian Probiotic Low-Fat White Cheese

Problem statement: The objective of this experiment was to manufacture an Iranianlow fat probiotic cheese. Approach: Iranian white brine cheeses (4 trials) were made by varyingprocesses, i.e., lowering the fat content and use of probiotic adjunct culture on separate days. All types of cheeses were ripened at 13°C for 2 weeks and at 6°C to the end of ripering period. Cheeses were analyzed for the compositional, microbiological, color and sensory characteristics and also lipolysis and organic acid profile. The Cheese of each trial was sampled at 1, 15, 30, 45 and 60 days during ripening. Results: Decreasing the fat level resulted in significant increases (p<0.05) in the level of moisture, protein and pH of whey. The results show that probiotic cheeses had higher moisture and pH than cheeses with bacteria (p<0.05). There were no significant differences (p>0.05) between the concentration of L. acidophilus of cheese groups when the fat content of samples was reduced. The rate and extent of lipolysis in the full-fat cheese was higher than in the low-fat control cheese (p<0.05). Results also showed decreasing fat content and addition of adjunct culture to the cheese treatments decreased the acetic and lactic acid contents (p<0.05). Decreasing the fat content of cheese samples and use of both factor in the treatments increased the a* value in the samples. Low fat cheeses received higher flavor and odor scores than full fat cheeses. Also addition of adjunct culture significantly (p<0.05) decrease the texture score of manufactured cheeses. Conclusion: Therefore the results of this study showed that the Iranian probotic low fat cheese is a functional food. It has better flavor and odor than normal cheese and can be used in many cases like as heart disease and obesity.