Impact of Cheese Colorants and Coagulants on the Physicochemical Functional and Rheological Characteristics of Natural and Process Cheese

Natural cheeses were manufactured utilizing different cheese colorants (annatto and beta carotene based), and coagulants (recombinant bovine and camel chymosin) to understand their effect on the physicochemical, functional, and rheological characteristics, and on the process cheeses manufactured therefrom. In physicochemical properties no significant (P \u3e 0.05) difference was observed in the cheese and whey manufacture from beta carotene and no color cheese. However, in the contrary a significant (P \u3c 0.05) difference was observed in all physicochemical properties in cheese and whey manufactured from beta carotene and annatto based cheese colorants. Whey cream was also separated from the cheese whey after manufacture. It was observed that whey cream produced by utilizing annatto colorant was darker, and comparatively more reddish and yellowish compared to the whey cream produced by utilizing no color and beta carotene based colorants. Whey produced from the Cheddar cheese manufactured by using beta carotene based natural cheese colors had a color identical to the uncolored cheese whey, and further it would not need to be bleached to remove undesirable yellow/orange color from the whey stream. Moreover, from the color stability storage study of Cheddar cheese, it showed considerable increase in pink discoloration on the cheese surface manufactured by utilizing annatto based colorant as compare to the cheese manufactured by utilizing beta carotene based colorants when constantly exposed under the fluorescent light. Recombinant bovine chymosin is an enzyme routinely used in cheese manufacture. Recently, recombinant camel chymosin (CHY-MAX® M) has also been developed and is commercially available as a milk coagulant for natural cheese manufacture. The effect of recombinant camel and bovine chymosin on the proteolysis in American style natural cheeses was studied. The level of primary proteolysis was significantly (P \u3c 0.05) lower in the CHY-MAX® M treatment at all ripening times (2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, and 4 months) as compared to CHY-MAX® Extra. Moreover, process cheeses were manufactured from the 1 month ripened natural cheeses after balancing the moisture, fat, protein, and salt to 42.0, 30, 18.0, and 2.2%, respectively. Unmelted and melted functional properties of processed cheese were studied. The results for hot viscosity at the end of manufacture (HVEM), TPA hardness, and loss tangent (tan δ) of the CHY-MAX®M treatment were significantly (P \u3c 0.05) higher than the CHYMAX ® Extra. Electropherograms obtained from capillary electrophoresis (CE) analysis showed there were significantly (P \u3c 0.05) higher degree of hydrolysis of αS1-CN and β- CN occurred to form smaller αS1-CN f(1-23), αS1-I-CN [αS1-CN f(24/25-199)] peptides, and various γ-caseins fractions in the natural cheese manufactured utilizing CHY-MAX® Extra as compared to natural cheese manufactured utilizing CHY-MAX® M. These findings suggested that CE is an effective and suitable technique to determine protein fractions in natural cheese. Moreover, camel chymosin (CHY-MAX® M) could be an appropriate alternative for bovine chymosin (CHY-MAX® Extra) in American style natural cheese manufacture to control and limit proteolysis, and when further utilized in process cheese manufacture resulted in an increase in firmness and meltability