Vol. 8, Issue 11, Part A (2024)

This research was carried out to find which blend of cow and buffalo milk was more suitable for the preparation of Mozzarella cheese with a good physico-chemical composition. Buffalo milk is considered more nutritious as compared to cow milk. But Mozzarella cheese is mostly prepared by cow milk around the world. India produces more buffalo milk compared to cow milk annually. In this research Mozzarella cheese was prepared by admixing cow and buffalo milk in different proportions by direct acidification method. Cheese milk was acidified using hydrochloric acid. CHYMAX rennet was used to coagulate the cheese milk. Mozzarella cheese was stretched and molded in 95 °C water and kept in 20 percent brine solution for 2 hours for brining. The T₁ (Control) was found to have highest moisture (53.35%) as compared to other treatments. The T₄ was found to have lowest moisture (50.13%) among all the treatments as treatment T₄ had highest concentration of buffalo milk. Highest fat percentage was recorded for the T₄ (24.77) and lowest fat percentage was recorded for the T₁ (20.12). The T₄ had recorded for the highest protein content also (23.14%) whereas the T₁ had the lowest protein (20.09%). The ash percentage recorded for all the treatments T_1, T_2, T₃ and T₄ was 2.61, 2.68, 2.89 and 3.10, respectively. T₄ also had a higher pH (5.61) compared to the control T₁ (5.40). Acidity increased in the T₄ and the T₃ (0.36%) and was same for both the treatment whereas the T₁ and the T₂ had acidity percentage of 0.33 and 0.35, respectively. The results obtained encouraged addition of more buffalo milk in the cheese milk for producing Mozzarella cheese with good physico-chemical characteristics.