RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Today’s demand for low-fat dairy products, especially cheeses with favorable qualitative properties such as high-fat cheese, has increased. The main goals of this research are to optimize the textural hardness properties of ultrafiltrated, low-fat cheese (7–9%), to investigate the possibility of its production with various concentrations of galactomannan and novagel (0.1–0.5%), and to assess the physicochemical, textural hardness and sensorial properties of the produced low-fat cheese in comparison with full-fat cheese. METHODS: The textural hardness of the cheeses was tested by a texture analyzer (Stable micro system TA.XT plus Texture, London, UK) equipped with a load cell of 5 kg. The pH values were measured using the pH meter and acidity of the cheese samples according to AOAC standard no. 15004 (AOAC, 1995b). The moisture content and dry matter were measured according to AOAC standard number 920.124 (AOAC, 1995a) as well. The total protein was measured according to AOAC standard no. 991.20 (AOAC, 2005). The amounts of salt and ash were measured according to AOAC (1995a) standard no. 945.46 (AOAC, 1995b), respectively. RESULTS: The results show that the textural hardness properties and sensorial properties of the cheese treatment containing 9% fat, 0.5% galactomannan, and 0.3% novagel are very similar to selected control samples. Meanwhile, optimization of the textural properties of low-fat cheeses via the response-surface method shows that the treatment containing 9% fat, 0.32% novagel and 0.5% galactomannan fulfills the desirable properties of a full-fat cheese up to 100% desirability. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this research also show that by using galactomannan and novagel in the formulation of low-fat cheese, it can be produced with favorable texture textural hardness and sensorial properties close to full-fat cheese.