ES317521A1 - Continuous cheese-making process and apparatus for use in carrying out that process - Google Patents

Abstract

A process for producing cheese comprises concentrating milk, inoculating the concentrated milk with a lactic ferment, adding rennet while maintaining the inoculated milk too cold to coagulate, heating said milk after a time delay of at least several minutes to a temperature which produces rapid coagulation, removing the whey, and forming the remainder into cheese in a conventional manner. The milk is concentrated to a solids content of two to four times that in normal milk, cooled to below 12 C., lactic ferments are added, and after several hours the temperature is increased to about 30 C. when further lactic ferments are added, and finally the fermented concentrated milk is cooled below 10 C. on attaining a pH of between 4.6 and 6.5 and rennet is added. As shown in Fig. 1 tanks 4, conveyed by an endless chain 1 in the direction of the arrow F, first receive a measured quantity of rennet from a tank 10a followed by a measured quantity of concentrated milk from a tank 10b and then progress to a gantry 11 where hot water is dispensed into the tanks 4 by a device 11a. On reaching a gantry 12, the curd formed is cut by grills 12a and finally the tanks 4 are inverted over a distributer 14 to discharge the cut curd. A tank washing device 15 is also provided. In another embodiment, Figs. 3, 4, cold, concentrated, acidified, rennet-treated milk and hot water are fed through tubes 16a and 20a respectively into a filling head 29 provided with suction means 21 to maintain both the head 29 and a vertical square cross-section column 30 full of the two liquids. The liquids mix in the head 29 and pass down the column 30 over adjustable baffles 35a-d, impact with which accelerates syneresis of the curd grains formed. Agglomeration of the curd grains occurs on passing through narrow tube 37 which leads to a hot water jacketed tube 38 in which the curd first separates into little blocks and then undergoes simultaneous syneresis and re-agglomeration. Further compression of the curd grains occurs in tube 25 on leaving the end 25a of which the curd is sliced by wires 40 (Fig. 4). The sliced curd is then further sliced by vanes 43 of a rotating hollow perforated cylinder 42 on which it is drained and carried to be deposited into a funnel portion 41b leading to a tube 26. Washing of the curd with water from a supply 46b and/or whey collected in a tank 47 (which whey may be heated), is effected in the tube 26 prior to discharge into a container 27. In a further embodiment, Fig. 2 (not shown), cold, concentrated, acidified, rennet treated milk is introduced into the top of a vertical column of downwardly flowing hot water. The mixture of curds and whey thus formed passes into a container below incorporating a magnetic stirrer and then progresses from the bottom of this container, through a multipleelbowed tube and an upwardly inclined tube, to an outlet from which the curd is discharged in paste form into a container wherein the whey is drained off. The making of cheeses of the Carre de l'Est, Saint-Paulin, and Cheddar types is exemplified.