Abstract
Milk from cows and buffaloes represents the major source of dairy products worldwide. Cheese is consumed fresh, ripened, cooked, or as recipe ingredient in many different types. Using Paneer and Tosella/Schiz model cheeses as a case study of cooked cheeses, in this short communication we evaluated the cheese yield and quality of fresh cheese before and after cooking comparing the two major dairy species (cows and buffaloes). A total of 75 model cheeses (37 Paneer and 38 Tosella/Schiz) were made. Slices of all the cheeses were cooked on a griddle at 130 °C. Milk, whey, and cheese composition traits, cheese-making efficiency traits, and cooked cheese quality traits were evaluated using a mixed model that included the fixed effects of cheese type and animal species, and their interaction, and the random effects of session, animal within species, and the residual. Higher cheese yields are obtained from the buffalo milk not only because more concentrated in nutrients, but also for the greater recovery of nutrients in cheese. There was a greater recovery of protein with the acid/heat Paneer procedure than the rennet Tosella/Schiz procedure, but we found a species × cheese type interaction for fresh cheese yield. The interaction was related mainly to the higher water retained in the Tosella/Schiz curd rather than to total solids. This led also to greater cooking weight-loss compared with Paneer. The qualitative traits of cheese were highly affected by griddling. Future research on the sensorial perception of cooked cheeses from the two major dairy species is needed to predict consumer response.
Cow and buffalo milk yield different results using different cheese-making procedures for producing cooked cheese.
Heat/acid coagulation, like for Paneer, allows for the recovery of the majority of the fat, almost all the caseins in the curd, and about half the whey proteins.
Mild temperature/rennet coagulation procedure, like for Tosella/Schiz, increases water retention in fresh cheese and weight loss during cooking.
The cheese-making procedures developed for the milk of one species cannot be transferred directly to the milk of another species because of an interaction between species and the cheese-making procedure.
HIGHLIGHTS
Introduction
Cheeses are made from milk by coagulation of the milk protein, particularly caseins (Corredig and Salvatore Citation2016). They can be divided into two main groups according to how the milk is coagulated: at high temperature using acidification agents (acid/heat-coagulated cheeses), or at a mild temperature after rennet addition, sometimes preceded by slight acidification (rennet-coagulated cheeses). The former process is widespread in hot climates, especially Southern Asia, where Paneer is probably the most widely consumed cheese in the Indian sub-continent (and possibly in the world). The worth of the worldwide Paneer market was estimated about US$ 8.7 billion in 2021 (IMARC, Citation2022). Paneer is obtained from buffalo or cows’ milk, and as animal rennet is not used, it is also one of the major sources of dietary proteins and minerals for lacto-ovo-vegetarian people (Srivastava and Goyal Citation2007). The rennet-coagulation process is used in the production of some traditional cooked cheeses from cow milk in cold areas of the Alps in Europe, examples from the northeastern Italian Alps being Tosella from Vicenza province (ONAF Citation2019a), Tosèla from Trento province (Settanni et al. Citation2011; ONAF Citation2018) and Schiz from Belluno province (ONAF Citation2019b). Even if produced with different coagulation method, both Paneer and Tosella/Schiz cheeses are intended to be consumed after cooking within a few days of production.
In a review, Khan and Pal (Citation2011) concluded that the quality of Paneer is directly related to the species the milk is obtained from. Coagulation temperature and agent, in particular, are very important in this regard (Khan and Pal Citation2011; Hussain et al. Citation2012; Gobbetti et al. Citation2018). The two different processes for coagulating milk (acid/heat coagulation and rennet coagulation) give rise to two different types of cheese, although their cooking (without melting) aptitudes may be similar.
Taking two cheeses intended for cooking (Paneer and Tosella/Schiz) as a case-study, our objectives were: (a) to establish a laboratory model cheese-making procedure for Paneer and Tosella/Schiz using cows’ and buffalo milk; (b) to compare the milk and whey composition, cheese yield, and nutrient recoveries in the two types of cheese made from milk from the two major dairy species, with a particular focus on possible interactions between species and cheese type; and (c) to study the cooking aptitude of the raw cheeses, and the physical properties of the cooked cheeses from the two major dairy species.
Materials and methods
Experimental design, animals, and milk sampling and analysis
For the present study we created a full 2 × 2 factorial design (Figure ) in order to compare the two cheese types (Paneer vs Tosella/Schiz) both produced with the milk of two species (bovine milk vs buffalo), even if Tosella/Schiz is normally produced from only bovine milk, to identify any possible interactions between animal species and cheese type.
Figure 1. Experimental design (n is the number of cheeses for each combination of species × cheese type).
The main characteristics of the farms, diets, animals, and milk samples used in the study are summarised in Table . Individual milk samples were collected in three consecutive weeks. The milk was collected during the evening milking, placed in 2-litre PET bottles, and immediately transported to the Milk Quality Laboratory of the Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment (DAFNAE) of the University of Padova (Padua), where they were stored overnight in a refrigerator at 4 °C before analysis the following morning. The milk bottles were taken out of the refrigerator in the morning and gently shaken. The milk was then analysed for pH and somatic cell count (SCC) with a Fossomatic Minor (Foss A/S), and the SCC log-transformed to somatic cell score (SCS; Ali and Shook Citation1980). Fat, protein, and lactose contents were measured with a Milkoscan FT2 (Foss A/S) Fourier-transform infra-red (FTIR) spectrometer.
Table 1. Main characteristics of the farms, lactating animals, and milk used to produce Paneer and tosella/schiz cheeses.
Model cheese-making procedures for Paneer and tosella/schiz production
The basic model cheese-making procedure used in our laboratory on both the species (Cipolat-Gotet et al. Citation2015; Cipolat-Gotet et al. Citation2018; Stocco et al. Citation2018) was adapted to the production of the two types of cheese, with reference to descriptions in the literature of the artisanal manufacture of Paneer (Srivastava and Goyal Citation2007; Khan and Pal Citation2011; Kumar, Rai, et al. Citation2014) and Tosella/Schiz (Settanni et al. Citation2011; Antoniazzi Citation2016). The steps in the laboratory model cheese-making procedures are summarised in Figure . Briefly, in the case of Paneer, coagulation was induced by direct acidification with 2% citric acid solution (to a target cheese pH of 5.30) at high temperature: the milk was heated to 85 °C and then cooled to 70 °C, at which point the acidification agent was added (Bhattacharya et al. Citation1971; Masud et al. Citation2007). In the case of Tosella/Schiz, acidification was milder (to a target cheese pH of 6.00 with 2% citric acid solution), the temperature of the milk was lower (35 °C), and coagulation was induced by adding rennet (Antoniazzi Citation2016).
Figure 2. Sequence of operations performed and instruments/materials used in the Paneer and tosella/schiz model cheeses-making procedures.
Analysis of bovine and bubaline whey and cheese, and calculation of cheese yields and milk nutrient recoveries in cheese
The whey obtained from each vat at each cheese-making session was also weighed and analysed for protein, fat, lactose, and total solids contents through Milkoscan FT2 (Foss A/S). The fresh Paneer and Tosella/Schiz cheese wheels were also weighed and analysed for fat, protein, salt, and total solids contents with a Foodscan near-infra-red spectrometer (Foss A/S) (Bittante et al. Citation2022).
Three cheese-yield (CY) traits were calculated from the weight and composition of the fresh cheese wheels and the whey as percentages of the milk processed (Stocco et al. Citation2018):
CYCURD, %: fresh cheese as % of the milk processed;
CYSOLIDS, %: cheese solids as % of the milk processed;
CYWATER, %: water retained in the cheese as % of the milk processed.
Four milk nutrient recovery in cheese (REC) traits were calculated from the weight and composition of the fresh cheese wheels and the whey, and the composition of the milk processed (Stocco et al. Citation2018):
RECFAT, %: fat retained in the cheese as % of the fat in the milk processed;
RECPROTEIN, %: protein retained in the cheese as % of the protein in the milk processed;
RECSOLIDS, %: total solids retained in the cheese as % of the total solids in the milk processed;
RECENERGY, %: energy of cheese as % of the energy of the milk processed.
Cheese cooking and cooking losses
The model cheeses were left to normalise to room temperature. They were subsequently cooked on a hot griddle (Tristar, Model BP-2970) with the plate surface at a thermostatically-controlled temperature set to 130 °C. A 1-cm-thick slice from each model cheese was cooked for four minutes on each side. The second side was cooked in a different position on the griddle to the first side, and the positions of the Tosella/Schiz and Paneer slices were rotated at every session. Finally, cooking loss was calculated by dividing the weight of the cheese slice after cooking by the weight of the cheese slice before cooking.
Colour and texture analyses of the fresh and cooked cheeses
The colour was measured on the sliced surface of the model cheeses before and after cooking following the procedure described by Stocco et al. (Citation2019). Readings were taken from three positions on each slice using a portable Spectro colourimeter (CM 508, Minolta Co. Ltd.). Colour traits were expressed according to the Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage colourimetric system (CIE L*, a*, b*) using primary illuminant D65 (standard daylight) with a 10° observer.
Texture analysis was carried out on both types of cheeses before and after cooking with an XT2i texture analyser (Stable Micro Systems Ltd.) fitted with a Warner–Bratzler shear device (50-N load cell; 2 mm/s crosshead speed). Two cylindrical core samples (cross-sectional area 1 cm2) were taken from each cheese, and their textural values averaged before statistical analysis. Texture data were reported as hardness (in terms of maximum shear force, expressed in Newtons), and firmness (in terms of work of shear, expressed in J).
Data editing and statistical analysis
Data were analysed using the SAS MIXED procedure (SAS, version 9.4, SAS Institute Inc.) according to the following hierarchical mixed models:
yijkl = μ + Speciesi + Animal(Species)j + Sessionk + eijkl
yijklm = μ + Speciesi + Animal(Species)j + Sessionk + Cheese(Animal)l + Speciesi × Cheeseil + eijklm
Preliminary analyses were performed with both models to identify possible outliers, defined as residual values falling outside ±3.0 residual standard deviations of the model means. The two models with all the factors considered as random (models iii and iv) were also used to estimate their variance components, expressed as percentages of their sum, to represent their relative importance on the total variation of the trait.
Results and discussion
Milk, whey, and cheese composition
Preliminary analysis of the sources of variation in milk composition, summarised in Figure , showed that species of lactating female represented the largest source of variation for fat, protein, casein, and total solids contents in milk. Only in the case of SCS the individual animals within species were more important than species, and in the case of lactose, the residual variation was much greater than species and individual animals within the species components. The descriptive statistics of the composition of milk of the two species, and the results of the species effect (F-value) obtained from the first model are given in Table . As expected, a strong effect of species was evident, with bubaline milk superior to bovine milk for all the traits analysed. Numerous studies compared the composition of cows’ and buffalo milks, which are the world’s two major dairy species (Ahmad et al. Citation2008; Abd El-Salam and El-Shibiny Citation2011). As here observed, bubaline milk is well known to have much greater concentrations of fat and protein than bovine milk, whereas there are only minor differences between them in lactose content (Ahmad et al. Citation2008; Medhammar et al. Citation2012).
Figure 3. Proportions of total variances in milk, whey and cheese composition due to the different sources of variation included in the model.
These differences can be in part observed in the dairy products obtained from these species, even if the coagulation technique should be also an important source of variation. About this, Figure also shows the relative importance of the sources of variation for whey and cheese chemical composition, confirming the different weight of species, cheese type, and their interaction observed for different traits. Cheese-making session (date), individual animal within species, and residual variation were moderate for many of these traits (Figure ).
The results of the mixed model used to analyse the variance in whey and cheese composition are summarised in Table . There was a specific difference between the two model cheese-making procedures using milk of both species on the pH values of the milk, whey, and cheese, which were much lower with the Paneer process than the Tosella/Schiz process, whereas the effect of species and the species × cheese type interaction was never significant (Table ). The pH of Paneer observed here is similar to that obtained in other studies (Masud et al. Citation1992; Bandyopadhyay et al. Citation2005; Ahmed and Bajwa Citation2019). In the case of whey composition, only lactose and total solids contents (greater in buffalo milk processing) were affected by species. In fact, within cheese-making procedure, buffalo milk coagulates more rapidly, forms a firmer coagulum, and tends to have faster synaeresis (Cecchinato et al. Citation2012; Roy et al. Citation2020; Bittante et al. Citation2022), characteristics that are also due to its different acidification pattern and higher buffering capacity (Ahmad et al. Citation2008). On the other hand, all traits except lactose were affected by cheese type (with greater contents in Tosella/Schiz whey). This is due to the cheese-making procedure of Paneer production, because high-temperature/acid coagulation causes flocculation of many of the whey proteins (those not attacked by chymosin), and traps the residual fat globules not recovered with the rennet coagulation. The interaction was significant for whey fat and protein contents, because the differences in favour of the Tosella/Schiz process were larger with buffalo milk than with cows’ milk (Table ).
Table 2. Effects of lactating female species and type of cheese on whey and cheese composition, cheese yield, and milk nutrient recoveries in the curd.
With regard to fresh cheese composition (Table ), the buffalo cheeses had greater fat and total solids contents, but a smaller protein content than the bovine cheeses. The effect of cheese type was particularly evident in the case of protein content, which was greater with the Paneer than the Tosella/Schiz process, as expected. The interaction was significant for all cheese composition traits, with an inversion of the effects in the case of cheese fat, salt, and total solids contents.
Cheese-making efficiency
Figure shows the relative importance of the different sources of variation in cheese yield and nutrient recovery traits. It can be seen from Table that the bubaline species is superior to the bovine species for all traits related to cheese-making efficiency, i.e. cheese yield and nutrient recovery in the cheese. Numerous comparisons of the two major dairy species have been made for different types of cheeses: soft white cheeses (Dimitreli et al. Citation2017), cream cheese (Fangmeier et al. Citation2019), Mozzarella-type cheeses (Hussain et al. Citation2012), Feta-type cheese (Kumar, Kanawjia, et al. Citation2014), and Paneer (Masud et al. Citation1992). All these studies confirm buffalo milk as having a higher cheese yield than cows’ milk because of its higher fat and protein content. Moreover, the greater cheese-making efficiency of buffalo milk is attributed to all caseins being present in micellar form, and the micelles being larger and less hydrated than in cows’ milk (Khedkar et al. Citation2015). On the other hand, the model cheese-making procedure affected CYCURD and CYWATER, but not CYSOLIDS, in favour of Tosella/Schiz over Paneer, and this superiority was greater with buffalo than with cows’ milk (significant species × cheese type interaction). In the case of REC traits, a large superiority of the Paneer procedure was observed for RECPROTEIN. The effects of cheese type were less relevant for RECSOLIDS and RECENERGY, and there was an interaction for RECFAT (Table ). The presence of the significant interaction in CYCURD, CYWATER, and RECFAT indicates that adapting technologies developed for bovine milk to the production of cheeses from buffalo milk is problematic, primarily because of the qualitative and quantitative differences between the two types of milk. Major issues arise in the manufacture of hard-type cheeses from buffalo milk, which are poorly rated due to their higher fat content and hard, rubbery, dry consistency and texture (Khedkar et al. Citation2015). In contrast, fresh cheeses produced from buffalo milk are often considered superior to similar cheeses made from cows’ milk, due in particular to their creaminess and appealing sensory profile (Khedkar et al. Citation2015).
Figure 4. Proportions of total variances in cheese yields, nutrient recoveries, raw and cooked cheese colour and texture due to the different sources of variation included in the model.
Cooking losses, and raw and cooked cheese characteristics
The cooking losses of fresh cheeses were largely influenced by cheese type (Figure ), and were almost 4 times greater with Tosella/Schiz cheeses than with Paneer cheeses, regardless of milk species (the milk species × cheese type interaction was not significant; Table ). This is not due to the melting, hence fat loss, of Tosella/Schiz during griddling, but instead mainly by loss of water.
Table 3. Effects of lactating female species and type of cheese on cooking losses and cheese quality traits before and after cooking.
The relative importance of the various sources of variation in cheese characteristics differed considerably between before and after griddling the cheeses, as can be seen from Figure . The fresh raw cheeses from both species are very bright, although the colour of fresh buffalo cheese is less saturated (in particular, less yellowish and slightly bluish) than cows’ milk cheese. This is related to the differences found also in the colour of the milk. Fresh buffalo milk has a slight blue-green hue, attributed to the larger casein micelles and fat globules, the presence of biliverdin, and the absence of carotenoids (Sindhu and Arora Citation2011). The effect of cheese type on colour traits, except for H*, was important for raw (higher L*, and lower a*, b*, and C* for Tosella/Schiz, Table ) and cooked cheeses, except for b* and C* (higher L* and H*, and lower a* for Tosella/Schiz, Table ). A much larger variability in cooked cheese was attributed to the cheese-making session and residual variation (Figure ). This is, in part, also due to the increase in the residual mean square error observed after cooking the cheese, which is known to reduce the repeatability of colour and texture measurements, despite the efforts made to standardise the cooking procedure.
The three texture traits were modestly affected by species and cheese type, especially before cooking (Table ), and by individual animal, especially after cooking (Figure ). Fresh buffalo milk cheese was slightly firmer than cow’s milk cheese, which is also related to differences in the milk chemical composition and casein micelle hydration. The species × cheese type interaction was very important, especially before cooking (Figure and Table ), while the cheese-making session had greater importance after cooking.
Conclusions
Different cheese-making procedures yield different results according to the species producing milk. Heat/acid coagulation, like for Paneer, allows for the recovery of not only the majority of the fat and almost all the caseins in the curd but also about half the whey proteins of cows’ and buffalo milk. Moreover, this procedure results in low water retention in the curd, which reduces not only the fresh cheese yield but also cooking losses (weight) during griddling. The mild temperature/rennet coagulation procedure normally used with bovine milk (Tosella/Schiz) produces very different results when used with buffalo milk, in particular increasing water retention. The species × cheese interaction also affects the composition, colour, and texture of the fresh and cooked cheese. In conclusion, this study confirms that the cheese-making procedures developed for the milk of one species cannot be transferred directly to the milk of another species, but needs careful adaptation and evaluation.
Ethical approval
Animal Care and Use Committee approval was not obtained for this study because the milk samples were obtained during the regular evening milking. The authors did not have direct control over the care of the animals included in this study.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Fondazione Cariparo for providing financial support to Nageshvar Patel to pursue his PhD at DAFNAE, University of Padova, and Luciano Magro, Giorgia Secchi, and Qianlin Ni (DAFNAE, University of Padova, Legnaro, Padova, Italy) for technical support. A special mention goes to dott.ssa Tatiana Dallo of the Lattebusche S.c.a. company for the support during the development of the laboratory model cheese-making procedure for Tosella/Schiz cheese.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The results and analyses presented in this paper are freely available upon request.
Additional information
Funding
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