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Facility Practices, Not Region Or General Make Procedure, Have Largest Influence On Cheddar Flavor Development: Study
Chicago—Facility practices as a whole, rather than region of manufacture or general make procedure, appear to have the largest influence on Cheddar cheese flavor development, according to a study in the Institute of Food Technologists’ (IFT) June/July issue of the Journal of Food Science.
Determination of Regional Flavor Differences in US Cheddar Cheeses Aged for 6 Mo or Longer was written by M.A. Drake and M.D. Yates of the Southeast Dairy Foods Research Center at North Carolina State University; and P.D. Gerard of Clemson University.
Flavor of any cheese is impacted by milk source, starter culture, specific make procedures (such as milk handling/hauling/storage, milled or stirred curd, temperature/time, specific equipment, and others), and ripening conditions, according to the study, which was funded by the California Dairy Research Foundation.
The general Cheddar cheese make procedures of milled or stirred curd refer to the basic two procedures used to make Cheddar. The milled curd procedure refers to the traditional Cheddar make procedure where the drained curds are allowed to knit or fuse together into slabs and then “cheddared” or held at 35 to 39 degrees C and turned and flipped for a period of time to allow for acid and texture development prior to milling into small finger-size pieces for salting and hooping.
In the stirred curd procedure, the curds are not allowed to fuse and knit. Instead, all acid development occurs in the curds and whey mixture (cooking step), and after the whey is drained, curds are salted and immediately hooped.
It has been traditionally thought that milled curd Cheddar cheeses will age or ripen better than stirred curd cheeses. Studies with other cheeses have indicated that milk and cheese flavor can also be impacted by season, as animals consume different feeds seasonally and this in turn impacts the flavor or flavor-reactive components in the milk and subsequently the cheese.
Regional differences have also been demonstrated. For example, researchers demonstrated that Comte cheeses exhibited sensory properties particular to georegions in France. They concluded that Comte cheese flavor and texture varied with season, but also with the region in which the cheese was produced, with resulting climate, soil, and vegetation playing major roles in terms of milk flavor and cheese plant microflora.
Other researchers demonstrated that pasture-specific compounds were present at aroma-active levels in Ragusano cheeses and that these compounds contributed in part to regional flavor differences. These studies were conducted with cheeses made from raw milk and cows that were pasture fed.
Regional Flavor Differences
There have not been any studies in the US that have addressed the question of regional flavor differences of cheeses, the study noted. In the US, large-scale Cheddar production comprises primarily pasteurized milk, and cows are not generally pasture fed but instead are fed a total mixed ration diet.
However, the possibility for regional differences in Cheddar flavor still exists since
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