• Department of Biological Engineering (http://www.deb.uminho.pt)

Project 5 - "Application of ohmic heating in the production of traditional cheeses"

Title of the Project Application of ohmic heating in the production of traditional cheeses
Name of the Institution University of Minho
Town Braga
Country Portugal
Host Faculty/Department/
Institute/Laboratory
 Universidade do Minho – Departamento de Engenharia Biológica
Project Supervisor António Augusto Martins de Oliveira Soares Vicente
Address Universidade do Minho – Departamento de Engenharia Biológica
Campus de Gualtar
4710-057 Braga
Portugal
Telephone +351.253.604419
Fax +351.253.678986
E-mail avicente@deb.uminho.pt
Project Objectives It is known that a cheese produced from pasteurised milk (usually by means of a plate and frame heat exchanger) lacks the organoleptic characteristics (mainly flavour and aroma) of cheese produced using raw milk. Therefore, it would be desirable to have a pasteurisation process that would allow obtaining milk simultaneously safe from a microbiological standpoint and of superior quality from the organoleptic point of view, which could be used to produce cheese as much as possible similar to raw milk cheese. In this project the aim is to study the possibility of using ohmic heating technology (which is defined as a process where electric currents are passed through foods with the main purpose of heating them by internal energy generation) to pasteurise milk in order to obtain such a high quality cheese.
In this context, the particular aim of this work is to evaluate, at lab scale, the efficiency of ohmic heating in enzyme and microorganism inactivation.
Required skills Usual laboratory skills, namely in terms of determination of enzyme activity and microbiology.
Knowledge of heat transfer phenomena and of the associated engineering problems.
Techniques to be used Ohmic heating; enzyme activity determination; determination of microbial death kinetics.
Schedule of Activities Month 1: Bibliography search
Months 2 and 3: Determination of microbial death kinetics
Months 4 and 5: Determination of enzyme inactivation kinetics
Month 6: Report generation.
Related Bibliography Halden, K., de Alwis, A., and Fryer, P. (1990). Changes in the electrical conductivity of foods during ohmic heating. Int. J. Food Sci. Technol., 25, 9-25.
Palaniappan, S., Sastry, S.K. and Richter, E.R. (1990). Effects of electricity on microorganisms: a review. J. Food Proc. Pres., 14, 393-414.
Palaniappan, S., Sastry, S.K. and Richter, E.R. (1992). Effects of electroconductive heat treatment and electrical pre-treatment on thermal death kinetics of selected microorganisms. Biotechnol. Bioeng., 39, 225-232.
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