Manufacture of Blue Cheese by Direct Acidification Methods

The high labor requirements in manufac tur ing and curing Blue cheese have p rompted developments in mechanical hooping of curd (5-7) and shortened methods of manufac tur ing and curing (8). In these nmchanized procedures, t radi t ional methods were used to coagulate the milk and fo rm the curd. A unique method has been developed to form Cottage cheese curd by adjus t ing the p H of skimmilk to 4.6 by adding acids, then heating the skimmitk to induce coagulat ion (9). Direct addit ion of acids to milk has been used also to adjus t the p i t of milk 1 before rennet coagulation in the manufac tu re of 2 the soft, plastic Mozzarella cheese (3). This 3 study was undertaken to adapt the direct acidi~ 4 fication methods to the manufac ture of the 5 brittle, open-textured Blue cheese curd. 6