Physico-chemical evaluation of mozzarella cheese prepared from blends of cow and buffalo milk

This research was carried out to find which blend of cow and buffalo milk was more suitable for the preparation of Mozzarella cheese with a good physico-chemical composition. Buffalo milk is considered more nutritious as compared to cow milk. But Mozzarella cheese is mostly prepared by cow milk around the world. India produces more buffalo milk compared to cow milk annually. In this research Mozzarella cheese was prepared by admixing cow and buffalo milk in different proportions by direct acidification method. Cheese milk was acidified using hydrochloric acid. CHYMAX rennet was used to coagulate the cheese milk. Mozzarella cheese was stretched and molded in 95 °C water and kept in 20 percent brine solution for 2 hours for brining. The T1 (Control) was found to have highest moisture (53.35%) as compared to other treatments. The T4 was found to have lowest moisture (50.13%) among all the treatments as treatment T4 had highest concentration of buffalo milk. Highest fat percentage was recorded for the T4 (24.77) and lowest fat percentage was recorded for the T1 (20.12). The T4 had recorded for the highest protein content also (23.14%) whereas the T1 had the lowest protein (20.09%). The ash percentage recorded for all the treatments T1, T2, T3 and T4 was 2.61, 2.68, 2.89 and 3.10, respectively. T4 also had a higher pH (5.61) compared to the control T1 (5.40). Acidity increased in the T4 and the T3 (0.36%) and was same for both the treatment whereas the T1 and the T2 had acidity percentage of 0.33 and 0.35, respectively. The results obtained encouraged addition of more buffalo milk in the cheese milk for producing Mozzarella cheese with good physico-chemical characteristics.