Effect of Milk Composition on the Quality of Fresh Fermented Dairy Products

Abstract

The rheology of yogurts or fresh fermented products generally describes and measures the texture of the product and includes such terms as viscosity and firmness of the gel while syneresis refers to the tendency of the yogurt to whey-off during storage. The importance of rheology and susceptibility to syneresis of fermented milk products is that they both have major impacts on consumer perceptions of the final product quality. Indeed, variation in the quality of yogurt products can lead the consumer to experience either an over-thin watery or an over-thick stodgy texture or a product which has a high level of free whey. It is obvious that the seasonal milk supply in Ireland compounds the particular difficulties associated with achieving a consistency in the quality of yogurts or other fresh fermented products. Importantly, both the rheology and syneresis of yogurts are markedly influenced by milk composition, processing treatments and the addition of hydrocolloids. Therefore, this project was undertaken so as to develop a laboratory fermented milks model system which allows the evaluation of the effects of variation of milk components, individually or in combination, on the rheological and syneretic properties of fermented milk products such as yogurt. In particular, the effects of varying total protein, casein-to-whey protein ratio, and fat content were studied as these variations reflect both the differences in milk composition due to lactational/seasonal effects and those due to process variations such as milk heat treatment.