Mini-Cheese Models

Abstract

Cheese-making is an intricate process in which the milk is converted into a fermented semisolid product. The use of optimized cheese models on a laboratory scale is fundamental for the evaluation of new ingredients for manufacturing cheese, especially for reproducibility issue, cost, and time-consuming. In this chapter, after discussing the pros and cons of several cheese models, one of the latest used protocols of cheese manufacture on a laboratory scale will be outlined. This cheese model demonstrated to be useful for assessing the performance of potential adjunct cultures, but it could be also used to study other parameters. The main advantage of this protocol is the large number of 100 g cheeses that can be produced simultaneously. Thus, it allows researchers to assess several strains or other factors in a real-cheese matrix at the same time.