Sour cream production using milk whey

Abstract

Milk production chain in Brazil has been increasingly innovative, and with increase in knowledge about milk whey and technological advances, this co-product started to be seen as an ingredient of high added value for the food industry. Sour cream, defined by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a cream that results from the acidification by lactic acid bacteria of pasteurized milk cream, is an innovative product in the country and with high nutritional quality. This work aimed to develop a product of the type sour cream replacing the ingredient natural yogurt with a milk beverage fermented based on mozzarella cheese, characterizing the final product by physical-chemical and microbiological analyzes Four formulations of sour cream were developed, investigating the variation in the concentration of citric acid (5, 10, 15 and 20%; m/m), in order to obtain a product with characteristics similar to the traditional. At the end of processing, the different treatments were characterized in terms of pH values, titratable acidity, humidity, total dry extract, proteins, lipids and enumeration of molds and yeasts. The physical-chemical analyzes showed significant differences (p ≤ 0,05), for the results of pH, titratable acidity, humidity, lipids and total dry extract. In the microbiological analysis, the sample with 5% citric acid stood out for presenting a result of minimal contamination (<100 UFC/g). Milk whey has proven to be a viable ingredient, just like sour cream, which presented characteristics similar to the product originating from Mexican culture, presenting itself as a new technological possibility for the Brazilian agribusiness.