Selection and Treatment of Milk for Cheesemaking

Raw milk is inherently variable with its composition influenced by many factors, including microbiological profile, enzyme complement, stage of lactation, herd diet and health status, all of which may impact the compositional consistency and quality of cheeses produced therefrom. It is necessary first to select milk of suitable quality for cheese manufacture and, to apply a range of pretreatments, such as standardization, protein fortification and heat treatment to optimize the safety, composition, yield, ripening and sensory qualities of the resultant cheeses. Similarly, recent advances in pretreatments have expanded such options to cheese makers and are reviewed.