Cheese brine treatment helps improve shelf life for consumers
The process for manufacturing many types of cheese, including the Dutch type cheeses such as Edam or Gouda, requires the pressed cheese to pass through a curing stage in a brine bath to enhance the taste and texture. Over time the brine becomes enriched withfats, proteins and lactose out of the cheese. At the same time yeasts and molds can develop which might need to be cleaned: this can be achieved using, for example, microfiltration. However, as well as maintaining the shelf life of the brine, this process can also have an additional, and unexpected, benefit for the consumer.
The chemical and microbiological composition of the cheese brine is important for the optimal development of the cheese flavor. But cheese brine may contain undesired microorganisms such as gas-producing lactobacilli, pigment producing micrococcus, pathogenic bacteria, yeast and mold. Microfiltration has proven to be a superior technology for the sanitation and purification of cheese brine as it is a clean process which physically removes the microorganisms, dead cells and physical contaminants from the brine without any significant change to the chemical composition.