THE USE OF CITRUS FRUITS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FLAVOURED KARISH CHEESE

Abstract

Karish cheese was made by fermentation of skim milk with yoghurt starter culture (Y) or by direct acidification with concentrated juice from orange (O), grapefruit (G) or lemon (L). In a combination of fermentation and direct acidification, the different juices were used to give the treatments of YO, YG and YL. The highest yield (29.17%) of the fresh cheese was recorded from YL treatment. This was followed by values of 27.93, 27.51 and 26.13% from L, YO, and O treatments in order, whereas cheese from Y had the lowest yield being 21.26%. Such yield values were accompanied by the corresponding vitamin C contents of 6.5, 7.33, 6.35, 7.50 and 0.33 mg/100 g, respectively. The use of different juices gave more acidic fresh cheese than cheese made using Y with them or Y alone which caused the lowest acidity content. The rheological properties of the fresh cheese including hardness, cohesiveness, springiness, gumminess and adhesiveness were also affected by the applied treatments. During storage of all cheese samples in the refrigerator, TS, acidity, total protein, SN/TN and FRI gradually increased with different rates, whereas only vitamin C content decreased. Evaluation of the organolptic properties revealed that the use of orange or lemon juice with yoghurt starter gave the best quality of fresh cheese with the higher scores for body and texture as well as the flavour of the cheese.

Keywords

• citrus fruits
• karish cheese