The coagulation activity in commercial rennet is determined by the reference method of the International Dairy Federation based on the determination of Berridge clotting time as a method to determine the gelation time. This method is based on the observations of the initial casein flocs in the glass wall of a test tube, so that their reproducibility and repeatability depend greatly on the operator.
Our optical system to control milk coagulation provides a consistent and repeatable method to estimate the kinetics of coagulating enzymes in milk. The coagulation method offers a suitable, precise, and simple alternative for the determination of coagulation activity.
The simultaneous monitoring of changes in temperature, pH and optic response, allow to evaluate new rennets, lactic acid bacteria cultures, and additives to make cheese, yogurt and fermented milks. It also facilitates the evaluation of innovative processing conditions for the development of new dairy products and the improvement of processing efficiency for cheese, yogurt and fermented milk manufacture.
In addition to the laboratory optical systems, inline versions of the technology are also available for real-time estimation of the elastic modulus in cheese and yogurt and the pH in yogurt.
