Association of cheesemaking characteristics with genetic variants of k-casein and b-lactoglobulin from milk of four breeds of dairy cattle

Laboratory scale Cheddar type cheese were made from 411 milk samples originating from Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Canadienne and Jersey with different phenotypes of kappa-casein (kappa-CN) and beta-lactoglobulin (beta-LG). From the milk input, cheese and whey outputs, the cheese yield, cheese composition and cheesemaking efficiency and other parameters were determined. The overall 37% moisture adjusted cheese yield and cheese yield efficiency were 11.19g, 10.19g, 11.97g, 11.46g and 98.91%, 90.10%, 90.76% and 90.92% for Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Canadienne and Jersey respectively. The milk of the four respective breeds contained 12.91, 12.69, 13.50, 14.57% total solids; 3.97, 3.58, 4.40, 4.61% fat; 3.61, 3.73, 3.81, 4.00% protein. In Ayrshire, the combination BB/BB and BB/AA (kappa-CN/beta-LG) were associated with higher 37% moisture adjusted cheese yield with the values of 12.51 and 12.83 g/100 g milk respectively. The cheese composition for these two types of milk were 62.28 and 63.96% total solids, 24.22 and 20.40% protein; 32.75 and 37.92% fat. For Brown Swiss, type AA/BB was associated with higher cheese yield (11.18g) with composition of 62.15% total solids, 22.54% protein, 33.23% fat. The phenotype with the highest cheese yield for Canadienne is BB/AB (12.45g) with cheese composition of 63.61% total solids, 23.27% protein and 63.61% fat. In Jersey, the phenotype combination with higher cheese yield (14.59g) is BB/BB. The cheese composition corresponding to this phenotype was 58.64% total solids, 22.96% protein and 29.59% fat. Phenotypes associated with better coagulating properties for Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Canadienne and Jersey were BB/AB, BB/BB, BB/BB and BB/BB for kappa-CN/beta-LG respectively