New Technology for Milk Processing in Soft Cheese Production

The cheese industry yields a lot of whey as byproduct. Whey contains dispersed phase components with modified native properties, which means it can be used in functional food formulations. Despite being a popular industrial process, membrane separation of whey lacks reliable information on the fractionation processes. This article introduces a new milk processing technology based on microfiltration separation of carbohydrate-mineral fraction (native whey) from skim milk during soft cheese production. The retentate with high micellar casein content made the cheese mix more efficient, as determined by the rennet-fermentation test of the original grade three milk. Compared to the conventional technology (State Standard GOST R 53437-2009), the new approach made it possible to recover up to 40% of permeate with a high-molecular polydisperse phase in its native form, thereby reducing the whey yield already at the first stage. The casein content in the soft cheese mix could be varied by adding different shares of microfiltration retentate. The finished cheese product had the sensory profile of commercial cheese.