ITPR20090004A1 - GRAIN CHEESE WITH VEGETABLE RABBIT AND PROCEDURE FOR OBTAINING CHEESE - Google Patents

Description

SUMMARY

A Grana or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and its production process are characterized by the fact that they use vegetable rennet instead of the traditional animal rennet.

In particular, the vegetable rennet is obtained starting from the Aspergillus Niger variety awamori added in liquid form in the quantity of 20-250 cc for every 1000 kg of milk.

DESCRIPTION

GRANA CHEESE WITH VEGETABLE RENNET AND PROCEDURE FOR

GET CHEESEâ €

The present invention relates to a grana cheese produced with enzymes from the vegetable kingdom and the consequent process for obtaining this product, leaving the organoleptic characteristics of the same unaltered.

The historical information about the production and consumption of cheeses is quite rich.

On the other hand, the technical information on their manufacture and in particular on the coagulants used over time is poor.

Only from the Romans, who can be considered the fathers of modern dairy art, do we learn the first precise information on coagulants and how to curdle milk and transform it into cheese.

Marco-Terenzo Vairone (1 16-27 BC) was the first to speak of coagulants, citing fig latex, vinegar, gallium, hare, kid and lamb rennet.

Lucio Junio Columella goes much further, the greatest Roman writer on agriculture who in his book `` De Re Rustica '' appeared around 50 AD, in addition to lamb or kid rennet and fig milk, introduces thistle as a coagulant wild, cardamus seeds, green pine nuts, gallium, shredded thyme.

This author describes in detail the use of these coagulants, their doses and the technology for making cheeses, giving particular preference to lamb and kid rennet, which at the time was used in pasta.

Pliny the Elder also speaks of these curds in the 1st century AD.

For the Roman writers of rustic things, vegetable coagulants such as fig latex Ficus carica from our gardens), flowers and floral heads of thistle (cynara cardunculus, red and wild blue thistle) and above all the inflorescences of gallium Gallium verum, ( a rubiacea common in the Italian meadows from which the name rennet derives), were more suitable for the manufacture of soft cheeses, while the stomach extracts of ruminants were better suited to the manufacture of hard cheese or formaticum.

Many of the practices in use are still used in the production of our current cheeses.

Over time, dairy art has seen many evolutions and only in the second half of the 18th century did the Frenchman Lalande finally describe the manufacture of rennet.

Later Deschamps was the first to separate the chymosin from the abomasum of calves and with the essay by Nava and Selmi 1857 we begin to speak in a scientific way of the manufacture, use and dosages of rennet, always handcrafted by each individual cheese maker.

The first true scientific dairy treatise, published in 1881 in the Italian Agricultural Encyclopedia by Gaetano Cantoni, mentions coagulating products with the most disparate and unpredictable effects.

The industry today is able to offer pure bacteriologically controlled products with practically infinite enzymatic proportions and suitable for any type of cheese making.

However, for grana cheeses, and in particular for Parmigiano-Reggiano, only animal rennet is used.

A first problem relating to the use of animal rennet is linked to the impossibility of taking the cheese by people who follow religions or eating habits that prohibit the use of animal rennet from the stomach (abomasum) of bovine.

A second problem is related to the non negligible costs of this rennet.

The purpose of the present invention is to eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks and to make available a parmesan cheese, and in particular a Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, which vegetarians, veganians and Hindus can also eat and in any case all those who, for religious reasons, are in fashion , or philosophy of life, they cannot or do not want to consume traditional cheese with animal rennet.

Another purpose is to reduce the cheese production costs while increasing the production yield, ie the quantity of cheese that can be obtained with the same quantity of milk used.

The specified technical task and the specified purposes are substantially achieved by a grana cheese and its manufacturing process, comprising the technical characteristics set out in one or more of the appended claims.

Further characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become clearer from the indicative, and therefore non-limiting, description of a preferred but not exclusive embodiment of a grana cheese and of the related manufacturing process.

Grana cheese and in particular Parmigiano-Reggiano are among the best known and appreciated Italian cheeses for their nutritional and organoleptic characteristics and fall into the category of hard cheeses, which are characterized by the fact that they are obtained with a part of milk. partially skimmed from the evening milking and a part of the morning milking.

Depending on the type of seasoning, short or long, for example, a Parmigiano-Reggiano “from meal” or “from grater” is obtained respectively.

While still providing for the production disciplinary for grana cheeses and also for Parmigiano-Reggiano the obligation to use animal rennet (but the inventor is confident that these specifications can be modified in the future), the present invention provides for a new and original production technique of grana or Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, using different types of enzymes and their mixtures of vegetable origin as coagulant.

The stages of the traditional procedure are as follows:

Mixing in the boiler of a milk milked in the evening skimmed by surfacing, with a whole milk milked in the morning;

- Enrichment with 2-3% whey-graft as a starter, heating to 30-35 ° C, preferably for 10-12 minutes, and adding rennet;

- Milk coagulation;

- Breaking of the curd: the curd is â € œ spinataâ €, that is cut into small fragments of milk clot;

- Heating from 30-35 ° C up to 50-55 ° C for 10-60 minutes;

- Agitation and sedimentation of grains;

- Collection and extraction with a cloth, preferably of cotton;

Deposit and pressing in molds;

- First drying phase (1 day);

- Removal of the molds with also elimination of the sheet and second drying (2 days) in a suitable environment;

- Salting (20-24 days);

- Brine removal and washing with subsequent drying / stewing;

- Seasoning (12-24 months).

The procedure described above is the traditional one for the production of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

The innovation consists in the fact that, with the intention of creating a new Grana or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese capable of satisfying two fundamental market requirements:

1) To be superimposable from a chemical, physical, microbiological and organoleptic point of view with the traditional product.

2) At the same time fully satisfy the needs of vegetarian and vegan consumers, thus excluding the use of coagulants from the animal world.

A new cheese-making technique has been developed which includes:

a) The use of enzymes from the plant kingdom, carefully chosen from a wide range of enzymes;

b) Reduced curd coagulation and cooking times compared to the traditional process;

c) Lower coagulation temperatures and cooking temperature of the curd;

d) Lesser variation in the quantity of graft whey compared to that of the traditional procedure;

e) Greater yield of cheese compared to the traditional procedure, for the same quantity of processed milk;

f) Reduction of the curing times of the final product by about 3 months.

The coagulant preferably used is produced starting from Aspergillus Niger var awamori producer of chymosin and from Rizomucor miehei, producer of mucorpepsin.

The aforementioned enzymes are obtained by placing Aspergillus Niger var awamori and Rizomucor miehei in the optimal conditions to synthesize chymosin and mucorpepsin respectively.

These two enzymes are then purified and made available in liquid form (or other form) suitable for immediate use for cheese making.

In the new process, therefore, the decisive element of innovation is given by the correct choice and consequent technological application of enzymes and their mixtures of vegetable origin capable of achieving a coagulation of the milk comparable to that obtained with animal rennet and lead to a product final with all the organoleptic properties of traditional grains enhanced.

Furthermore, the tests carried out by us have highlighted that this new production process achieves a cheese yield of 1 kg (assessable with the 12-month weighing of the cheese wheels) more than the traditional form of control and still from ours. experience it has been possible to observe that the new product reaches a maturation attributable to a traditional grain of 24 months, already at 18 months, resulting in a substantial saving in warehouse costs.

Furthermore, in order to be able to classify the grana cheese, or Parmigiano - Reggiano Vegetale, the whey - graft must also be made entirely with rennet of vegetable origin and added to the milk in the appropriate percentages of the total volume of milk used. This particularly delicate phase was carried out with innovative measures, supported by numerous field tests. Although the aforementioned liquid product (chymosin) has long been available on the market, together with countless other rennets of vegetable origin, until now it has never been used for the production of parmesan and Parmigiano - Reggiano, resulting in attempts to use it only in cooked paste cheese sector such as cedar or cheeddar. Attempts to use vegetable rennet for the production of parmesan and Parmigiano - Reggiano have remained unsuccessful until now, having used unsuitable rennet.

The present vegetable rennet, on the other hand, carefully selected from the myriad of rennets available on the market and appropriately dosed, has finally given surprising effects allowing the creation of a high quality Parmigiano - Reggiano cheese and Parmesan cheese.

This rennet is preferably added in liquid form in the quantity of about 20-250 cc for every 1000 kg of milk giving rise to about 88 kg of cheese.

Compared to the traditionally used animal rennet, the aforementioned vegetable rennet allows a reduction of the costs of rennet by about 40-50%, allowing at the same time a greater yield, since about 2% more cheese is obtained than the traditional process with rennet animal, for the same quantity of milk used.

Advantageously, the organoleptic properties of cheese obtained from vegetable rennet are better than those of cheese obtained from animal rennet as the cheese has a higher fat content (greater nutritional value) and a higher concentration of lactic bacteria, the which increases the hygienic-sanitary safety of the product.

Advantageously, the final taste of the cheese is practically unchanged, so much so that the consumer is unable to notice whether the ingested cheese has been obtained with animal or vegetable rennet.

The Ph is also substantially unchanged.

As for the doses of rennet and times and temperatures adopted, the cheesemaker, even with vegetable rennet, will be able to modulate the use of rennet according to the type of milk available (which is normally communicated to the cheesemaker by the laboratories analysis of dairy centers).

According to a possible variant of realization, instead of using vegetable rennet obtainable starting from Aspergillus Niger var awamori, it is possible to use vegetable rennet obtainable starting from Rhizomucor miehei which originates ec3 .4.23.23 (mucorpepsin), or Cryphonectria parasitica.

Claims (6)

CLAIMS: 1) Grana cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano characterized by the fact that it is obtained with the use of vegetable rennet, in which said vegetable rennet is produced starting from Aspergillus Niger var awamor. 2) Grana cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano according to claim 2, in which Aspergillus Niger var awamori is used. 3) Grana cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano according to claim 1, in which the vegetable rennet used is produced starting from Rhizomucor miehei which originates ec3.4.23.23 (mucorpepsin), or Ciyphonectria parasitica. 4) Process for making grana or Parmigiano - Reggiano cheese, characterized by the fact that it involves the use of vegetable rennet instead of animal rennet, in which said vegetable rennet is produced starting from Aspergillus Niger var awamor. 5) Process according to the claim referred to in point 4, in which the Aspergillus Niger variety awamori is used. 6) Process according to claim 4, in which the vegetable rennet used is produced starting from Rhizmucor miehi which originates in ec3.4.23.23 (mucorpepsin), or Cryphonectria parasitica.