The Effect of Fat-Reduction and Cacl2 Levels on Sensory and Textural Characteristics of UF-Feta Cheese Made from Retentate Powder of Milk Ultra-Filtration

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that saturation fat consumption increases the risk of both coronary and cancer disease. As a result, fat reduction in UF-Feta cheese (≈ 45% fat in dry matter content) is favorable but unfortunately has some negative effects on the quality of cheese. In this research, the effect of different levels of retentate fat (0, 2, 6, 10, 14 and 18%) and CaCl2 (0 and 0.02%) on sensory (texture, taste, odor, total acceptance) and mechanical texture (texture profile analysis and penetration parameters) characteristics of UF-Feta cheese made from retentate powder was studied. The completely randomized design with two factors was used for production and data analyzing. The results of sensory test showed that cheese sample containing 10% fat retentate and 0.02% CaCl2 had highest texture score with significant difference. Therefore, the panelists were preferred taste and odor of full-fat samples and the maximum total acceptance was belonged to cheese sample made from 14% fat retentate. In texture profile analysis, fat reduction was resulted in significant decrease in gumminess, chewiness, adhesiveness, springiness and compression work but cohesiveness of samples didn’t have any significant differences. In penetration test, hardness, apparent modulus of elasticity, adhesiveness force, adhesiveness and penetration force were decreased with fat reduction. As a result, addition of 0.02% CaCl2 to retentate was increased generally the texture profile analysis and penetration parameters.