Rennet cheese

Specificity. The generally claimed specific action of enzymes is not as sharply defined as is often expected. Proteases are broad in the range of amino acid bonds they hydrolyze and exhibit only a degree of specificity. Careful investigation of the range of bonds attacked, and testing for comparable action on the actual protein target, will enable an enzyme to be chosen that has suitable performance. Some proteases are extremely narrow in their action, for example the various cheese rennets. 

A good-quality rennet extract is free of lipolytic activity but a rennet paste is used in the manufacture of some Italian varieties, e.g. Romano and Provolone. Rennet paste contains a lipase, referred to as pre-gastric esterase (PGE), which makes a major contribution to lipolysis in, and to the characteristic flavour of, these cheeses. Rennet paste is considered unhygienic and therefore semi-purified PGE may be added to rennet extract for such cheeses (Chapter 8). 

Extensive lipolysis occurs in two families of cheese in which fatty acids and/or their degradation products are major contributors to flavour, i.e. certain Italian varieties (e.g. Romano and Provolone) and the Blue cheeses. Rennet paste, which contains pre-gastric esterase (PGE) rather than rennet extract, is used in the manufacture of these Italian cheeses. PGE is highly specific for the fatty acids on the sn-3 position of glycerol, which, in the case of milk lipids, are predominantly highly flavoured short-chain fatty acids (butanoic to decanoic). These acids are principally responsible for the characteristic piquant flavour of these Italian cheeses. 

Galium verum Linn. (Cheese Rennet) A slender perennial herb, 1-3 ft high, with erect angular stems, found in Kashmir, Lahul and other western Himalayan regions at an altitude of 1,500-3,000 m. 

Enzymes. Enzymes are of great importance to the dairy industry as they play a key role in various processes, such as the production and ripening of cheese. Rennets are the giants in milk processing enzymes but other enzymes such as proteases, lipases, lysozyme and p-galactosidase have shown their applications in dairy processing. 

Food. Food-grade calcium chloride is used in cheese making to aid in rennet coagulation and to replace calcium lost in pasteurization. In the canning iadustry it is used to firm the skin of fmit such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and jalapenos. It acts as a control in many flocculation, coagulation systems (37). Food-grade calcium chloride is used in the brewing iadustry both to control the mineral salt characteristics of the water and as a basic component of certain beers (see Beer). 

Property Rennet Lactic acid Sulfuric acid Cheese... 

Fig. 3. Schematic process flow diagram for an imitation cheese product having the following formulation dry ingredients, calcium caseinate (or rennet casein), 24.5 wt % tapioca flour, 3.0 wt % salt, 2.16 wt % adipic acid, 0.6 wt % vitamins and minerals, 0.1 wt % sorbic acid (mold inhibitor), 0.5 wt % fat—color blend, soybean oil hydrogenated to a Wiley melting point of 36°C, 21.3 wt % lactylated monoglycerides, 0.05 wt % red-orange coloring, 0.01 wt...

Microbial rennets from a number of producers, eg. Novo Nordisk, Gist Brocades, and Miles, have been available since the 1970s and have proved satisfactory for the production of different kinds of cheese. Their price is considerably lower than that of chymosin. Their properties have proven very similar to those of chymosin (89,90), and only slight modifications of the traditional cheesemaking technique are required in practice. 

With rennet to make cheese (leaving whey)... 

The word curdling comes from curd, the coagulated solid formed by adding acid or rennet to milk. Curds are the precursors of most cheeses. 

The most abundant milk protein is casein, of which there are several different kinds, usually designated a-, (1-, and K-casein. The different caseins relate to small differences in their amino acid sequences. Casein micelles in milk have diameters less than 300 nm. Disruption of the casein micelles occurs during the preparation of cheese. Lactic acid increases the acidity of the milk until the micelles crosslink and a curd develops. The liquid portion, known as whey, containing water, lactose and some protein, is removed. Addition of the enzyme rennet (chymosin) speeds up the process by hydrolysing a specific peptide bond in K-casein. This opens up the casein and encourages further cross-linking. 

The Daily Industiy. The first step in cheese manufacture is the coagulation of milk. Coagulation can be divided into two distinct phases, enzymatic and the non-enzymatic. In the primary enzymatic phase a proteol ic enzyme such as chymosin (rennet), or less effectively, pepsin, carries out an extremely specific and limited proteolysis, cleaving a phenylalanine-methionine bond of /c-casein, making the casein micelle metastabie. In the second, non-enzymatic phase, the... 

Microbial coagulants are now useful and are responsible for about one third of all the cheese produced worldwide, but suffer from the disadvantage of being too stable and so are threatened commercially by improved methods of produdng chymosin by recombinant DNA technology. The use of thermally destabilized microbial rennets results in residual enzyme levels in the milk product similar to or below those encountered when calf rennet is use (55). An unexpected benefit has been an increase on some occasions of the specificity of the microbial enzyme, making it virtually indistinguishable from the action of calf rennet. Also some microbial rennets help impart a flavor that is popular with consumers. 

The first company based upon applied biocatalysis also dates back to the 19 century. In 1874 Christian Hansen started a company in Copenhagen, Denmark. His company— named Christian Hansen s Laboratory to this day—was the first in the industrial market with a standardized enzyme preparation, rennet, for cheese making. Rennet, a mixture of chymosin (also called rennin) and pepsin, was and still is obtained by salt extraction of the fonrth stomach of suckling calves. 

Casein may be coagulated and recovered as rennet casein by treatment of milk with selected proteinases (rennets). However, one of the caseins, K-casein, is hydrolysed during renneting and therefore the properties of rennet casein differ fundamentally from those of acid casein. Rennet casein, which contains the colloidal calcium phosphate of milk, is insoluble in water at pH 7 but can be dissolved by adding calcium sequestering agents, usually citrates or polyphosphates. It has desirable functional properties for certain food applications, e.g. in the production of cheese analogues. 

This subject is dealt with in Chapter 10. Suffice it to say here that K-casein is the only major casein hydrolysed by rennets during the primary phase of milk coagulation, which is the first step in the manufacture of most cheese varieties. 

Crude enzyme preparations have been used in food processing since prehistoric times classical examples are rennets in cheesemaking and papaya leaves to tenderize meat. Added (exogenous) enzymes are attractive in food processing because they can induce specific changes, in contrast to chemical or physical methods which may cause non-specific undesirable changes. For some applications, there is no viable alternative to enzymes, e.g. rennet-coagulated cheeses, whereas in some cases, enzymes are preferred... 

Rennets. The use of rennets in cheesemaking is the principal application of proteinases in food processing and is second only to amylases among industrial applications of enzymes. The sources of rennets and their role in milk coagulation and cheese ripening are discussed in Chapter 10 and will not be considered here. 

Semi-purified preparations of PGE from calf, kid and lamb are commercially available and give satisfactory results slight differences in specificity renders one or other more suitable for particular applications. Connoisseurs of Italian cheese claim that rennet paste gives superior results to semipuri-fied PGE, and it is cheaper. 

The primary step in the manufacture of most cheese varieties and rennet casein involves coagulation of the casein micelles to form a gel. Coagulation... 

The strength of the rennet-induced gel is also adversely affected by heat treatment of the milk, again presumably because the whey protein-coated micelles are unable to participate properly in the gel network. Gels from severely heat-treated milk have poor syneresis properties, resulting in high-moisture cheese which does not ripen properly. Syneresis is undesirable in fermented milks, e.g. yoghurt, the milk for which is severely heat-treated (e.g. 90°C x 10 min) to reduce the risk of syneresis. 

There are at least 1000 named cheese varieties, most of which have very limited production. The principal families are Cheddar, Dutch, Swiss and Pasta filata (e.g. Mozzarella), which together account for about 80% of total cheese production. All varieties can be classified into three superfamilies based on the method used to coagulate the milk, i.e. rennet coagulation (representing about 75% of total production), isoelectric (acid) coagulation and a combination of heat and acid (which represents a very minor group). 

The production of rennet-coagulated cheeses can, for convenience, be divided into two phases (1) conversion of milk to curds and (2) ripening of the curds. 

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