Composition and Bacterial Growth as Factors Affecting the Body of Pasteurized Process Cheese Spread

Abstract

Certain components of cheese spreads made with a semisoft ripened cheese, Dariworld, varied in their ability to affect spread firmness. Firmness decreased with increases in moisture and with substitutions of the solids-not-fat supplied by the cheese with nonfat dry milk, lactose, and dried whey. Changes in the fat content from 20 to 27% had no effect on firmness when the ratio of moisture to solids-not-fat was not altered in the spreads. Firmness increased regularly in all spreads when the proportion of moisture to cheese solids-not-fat decreased; this gave a convenient method of controlling spread firmness. Samples of spreads containing added lactose and nonfat dry milk increased markedly in firmness and acidity, and contained large numbers of gram-positive bacilli after 90 days of storage at 90[degree]F. Spreads without these additives did not increase in firmness under the same conditions.