Relationship between Melting Quality and Hardness of Cheddar Cheese

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In part, the objective was to correlate melting quality with certain other cheese properties, such as cheese hardness, that may be used as a means of predicting melting quality of Cheddar cheese. Melting time (in seconds) was considered an index of melting quality; a short melting time was indicative of a good melting quality and vice versa. Hardness was expressed as the maximum force, in grams, required to force a wire cutter through a specially prepared cheese sample. A relatively high correlation coefficient, +0.799, was found which indicated that cheese hardness can be used as a means of predicting the melting quality of Cheddar cheese. The relationship of fat content, moisture content and pH values to melting quality and hardness of Cheddar cheese was also investigated. These factors influenced hardness more than melting quality but the separate or combined effect was not strong enough to account for the wide variations found in melting quality or hardness.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: