Changes During Cheese Curing

Abstract

Port‐Salut, Gouda and Edam cheeses were analyzed for fat, protein moisture and ammonia evolution during commercial curing (50 days for the first two cheeses and 57 days for the last one). Fat (approximately 33%), protein (approximately 31%) on a wet basis and moisture (between 25 and 37%) content of the cheeses remained practically constant throughout the experiment, while considerable changes were observed for ammonia evolution when analyzed by direct microdistillation and by ammonia sensitive electrode, as well as between whole and defatted samples. Ammonia recovery for the microdistillation method was below the expected value for the 3 cheeses analyzed; the contrary happened with the ammonia sensitive electrode, where higher ammonia values were detected in the whole cheese samples: Gouda, 2089 mg/kg; Edam, 756 mg/kg and Port‐Salut, 2857 mg/kg. These data suggest that the use of the electrode can be a useful tool in ammonia determination, avoiding losses during sample preparation, as normally happens during microdistillation that requires defatting.