The rheology of cheese, butter and other milk products. (The measurement of “body” and “texture”)

Rheology is denned as the science of the deformation of matter. It includes the study of all deformations, recoverable (elastic) and non-recoverable (plastic). In this paper cheese is primarily considered although the fundamental principles apply to all materials. The elastic and plastic properties of cheese exercise a great influence in the ripening processes and the incidence of faults. Although much progress has been made in the bacteriological and chemical investigations of cheese ripening, little fundamental work on the nature of and the factors controlling the physical properties of curd and cheese has been carried out.