JP2890378B2 - Powdered cheese with blocking prevention and method for producing the same - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a powdered cheese which does not cause blocking even when stored for a long period of time and which always maintains a smooth property and a method for producing the same.

(Prior art) Generally, powdered cheese on the market has an average particle of 0.
It is sized to 8 mmφ, fine particles of 1 mmφ or less occupying 80%. The reason for sizing into such fine particles is that the fine powder cheese has better drying efficiency, and that the fine particles are finely melted in the mouth and the diffusion of flavor is good. However, if the particles are too fine, the contact area between the particles will increase, and the moisture of the powdered cheese will increase, or the temperature shock (the product will be at a high temperature of 25-30 ° C and a low temperature of 5
When dew condensation water or oil-off occurs frequently in a state of reciprocating in an atmosphere of 10 ° C.), there is a disadvantage that binding between particles is caused and blocking occurs during storage.

Conventionally, as means for preventing blocking,
As disclosed in JP-A-61-224933, it is known that a powdery cheese is mixed with a binder to adjust the water content of the product to 8% or less, and that the granules have a particle size of 0.2 to 1.0 mm. .

However, reducing the water content of the product in this manner has disadvantages such as a decrease in product yield and excessive drying, which makes the powdered cheese hard and dissolves in the mouth poorly. Also, 0.2 ~
Granules having a diameter of about 1.0 mm are not so different from powdered cheese currently on the market (average particle diameter: 0.8 mm), and do not prevent blocking of powdered cheese having a high water content.

In addition, the present inventors have studied adding a water-insoluble dietary fiber to cheese and improving the smoothness to prevent blocking. As a result, due to the smoothness of the dietary fiber, fluidity can be imparted to the powdered cheese, but the dietary fiber itself has a low ability to adsorb condensed water and oil due to oil-off during storage, and in this respect it is even more difficult. It was desired to prevent blocking. This is shown in Table 1 from the results of a water absorption test showing that the cellulose (dietary fiber), chitosan, and microcrystalline cellulose were stored in an atmosphere at a humidity of 80% and the absorbed water content (%) was shown. As is evident, dietary fiber is inferior in water absorbency compared to other materials, so it is difficult for the dietary fiber to absorb water when water drops etc. occur due to temperature shock. It has become necessary to consider means for preventing powdered cheese from blocking.

(Means for Solving the Problem) The present inventors have conducted various studies on what kind of means can be adopted as a means for preventing blocking during long-term storage of cheese, especially high-moisture powdered cheese. as a result,
When the particle size of the powdered cheese is increased, the contact point between the cheeses becomes smaller and the blocking can be prevented as compared with the powdered cheese having a small particle size, and the blocking can be prevented by adding and mixing chitosan powder to the powdered cheese. Further, they have found that when both of them are used in combination, the blocking prevention effect can be more effectively achieved, and the present invention has been accomplished.

That is, in the present invention, first, the powder cheese
The particle size of the final powdered cheese is about twice as large as that of the conventional product, so that the particle size of 1.0 mmφ or more occupies 75% or more of the whole powdered cheese (when the weight is constant, the surface area per unit weight is 1 / 4), the number of contact points between particles is about 1
By drastically reducing the ratio to / 8, the smoothness of the powdered cheese was improved and blocking (binding) between particles was prevented. And, in this way, the greasy cheese maintains its smoothness without having a low moisture content,
Since the blocking can be prevented, the powdered cheese does not become hard and the melting in the mouth does not become difficult.

Such powdered cheese of the present invention can be produced by the following method.

Select one or more natural cheeses as the raw material cheese, mix them, crush the mixture,
It is heated and melted with or without the addition of a molten salt such as citrate or phosphate, preferably at 75 ° C to 85 ° C.
After the mixture is sufficiently melted, an inert gas such as nitrogen gas is added under pressure, preferably 1.2 to 1.5 kg.
at 20 cm / cm ² for 20-30 seconds. Next, the aerated fused cheese is injected into a vacuum chamber, and the noodle-like cheese is solidified. The solidified cheese is dried using an air-flow drier or the like, and the product moisture is 10 to 20%, preferably 13 to
After being dried to 15%, it is sized with a flash mill etc. (for example, made by Fluoro di Paudal kk) and passed through a screen with a diameter of 4mm. To obtain a process-type powdered cheese.

Alternatively, the heated and melted cheese is formed into a block shape of about 3 to 5 kg, cooled and solidified, and the formed cheese is pulverized by a drum-type pulverizer. It may be.

In each of these cases, the average particle size of the product is approximately 1.5 m
m is desirable.

FIG. 1 shows the particle size distribution of powdered cheese obtained by the above method of the present invention and the particle size distribution of commercially available powdered cheese. As is clear from this figure, the powdered cheese of the present invention, in which particles having a particle diameter of 1 mmφ or more account for 75% or more, can be clearly distinguished from commercial products, and has an average particle diameter about twice that of commercial products, and The number of fine particles of 1 mmφ or less is reduced to about 1/3. This indicates that the contact area between the particles is reduced, and that a product having extremely good fluidity is produced. Also, the second
In the table, the powdered cheese according to the present invention and commercial products (particle size distribution
) Indicates the blocking ratio that occurs when stored at 10 ° C, 25 ° C, and 5 to 25 ° C. As a result of this storage test, the powdered cheese according to the present invention had a lower blocking ratio than the commercially available products at all storage temperatures and was preferable.

* Blocking ratio = ratio of the weight of the residual powder to the weight of the whole powder when the cylindrical container filled with the powdered cheese is gently inverted [(weight of the residual powder in the container / weight of the whole powder) x 100] (hereinafter the same) In addition, in the present invention, secondly, for powdered cheese produced by the conventional method, an additive having a more anti-blocking effect than dietary fiber powder was studied,
By adding and mixing the chitosan powder, dew water or oil off caused by temperature shock during storage was absorbed to prevent blocking. The reason why the chitosan powder has a higher anti-blocking effect than other anti-blocking agents (for example, dietary fiber) is considered to be due to the following reasons. That is, since the chitosan powder has a function as an oil adsorbent or a water adsorbent, when the chitosan particles adsorb oil or moisture from the powdered cheese, the substance once adsorbed penetrates into the chitosan particles. Because of this, the surfaces of the chitosan particles are always kept dry and dry, and as a result, the powdered cheese does not bind to each other and no blocking occurs.

Table 3 shows the results obtained by preparing powdered cheeses having different moisture contents, and measuring the blocking ratios of those with and without the addition of chitosan powder. That is, the water content of the powdered cheese was adjusted to 14% and 18%, and the chitosan addition rate was 0 to 1.
The storage temperature was changed to 5%, and the storage temperature was reciprocated every 3 days from 5 ° C. to 25 ° C., stored for 10 weeks, and the blocking ratio was measured. As a control, Table 4 shows the results of a similar test for the case where 1% of dietary fiber (cellulose) was added.

This results in a low moisture content (14%) and a high moisture content (18%).
%), Both of the chitosan-added plots compared to the non-added plots,
The higher the chitosan addition rate, the lower the blocking rate, and it was confirmed that chitosan had an anti-blocking effect. On the other hand, as for the dietary fiber, even if it is added at 1%, it is better than the non-added group. The result shows that the addition of chitosan has an effect of preventing blocking.

The amount of chitosan powder added in the present invention is preferably about 0.5 to 1.5% based on the weight of the powdered cheese. At 0.5% or less, the anti-blocking effect is weak, and at 1.5% or more, an astringent taste unique to chitosan is imparted to the product. Further, the anti-blocking effect is higher when the cheese moisture content is 14% than when it is 18%. From this point, it is desirable to adjust the cheese content to 15% or less.

Further, in the present invention, thirdly, the coarsely ground particle size is 1.0 m
By adding chitosan powder to coarsely ground type powdered cheese containing 75% or more of particles of mφ or more, excellent blocking prevention was achieved by a mutual synergistic effect.

Table 5 shows the results. In other words, it contains 75% or more of coarsely ground particles having a particle size of 1.0 mmφ or more, and has an average particle size of 1.5 mm
1.0% chitosan powder is added to powdered cheese of φ and powdered cheese of 0.8 mmφ in average particle size (see FIG. 1) similar to a commercially available product, and reciprocated at a storage temperature of 5 to 25 ° C. every three days, After storing for 10 weeks, the blocking ratio was measured. As a result, 75% or more of particles having a particle size of 1.0 mm
It was adjusted to mmφ and the powdered cheese to which chitosan powder was added at 1% was stored for 2.5 months, compared with the one stored by individually adjusting the product particle size and adding chitosan.
Excellent anti-blocking effect. Therefore, it is desirable to use the adjustment of the particle size and the addition of the chitosan powder in combination.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described more specifically with reference to Examples.

Example 1 50 kg of each of Cheddar cheese and Gouda cheese was pulverized and mixed, and 2 kg of a molten salt (equivalent mixture of sodium citrate and dibasic sodium phosphate) was added to this raw material cheese, and the mixture was stirred using a Stephan melter. The mixture was heated and melted to a temperature of 85 ° C. with high-speed stirring at 750 rpm. Nitrogen gas was blown into the melted cheese at a pressure of 1.2 to 1.5 kg / cm ² for 25 seconds to be aerated, and then pressure-fed by a Crepaco pump into a vacuum chamber maintained at 6 mmHg to 10 mmHg, from a nozzle arranged in the vacuum chamber. Sprayed.

The cheese sprayed as described above becomes noodle-like and blows out from the nozzle, and its tissue is made porous and solidified by self-cooling. The solidified cheese is dried using a gas-flow drier until the product moisture becomes 13%. Next, after cooling the powdered cheese with cold air until the product temperature becomes 30 ° C or less, the particles are sized using a flash mill (made by Fuji Paudal KK), passed through a screen with a diameter of 4 mmφ, and the average particle diameter is about 1.5 mm. 71.2 kg of a coarse-grained process powder cheese in which particles of 1 mmφ or more accounted for 80% or more were obtained.

After the powder cheese was forcibly deteriorated and stored for 4 days in an atmosphere of 25 ° C. and 100% humidity, the blocking rate was measured.
The commercial product used as a control was 50%, while the powdered cheese according to Example 1 showed an extremely good fluidity of 0.3%.

Example 2 50 kg of cheddar cheese, 45 kg of Gouda cheese and 5 kg of remanufactured cheese were crushed and mixed, and 1.6 kg of sodium borophosphate and 0.8 mol of sodium pyrophosphate were added to this raw material cheese as a molten salt.
kg and 0.6 kg of sodium bicarbonate for pH adjustment were added, and the mixture was heated and melted to a temperature of 85 ° C. while stirring at a high speed of 1500 rpm using a Stephan melting machine. The melted cheese was dried and cooled to a product moisture of 14% in the same manner as in Example 1, then sized with a flash mill, passed through a screen having a diameter of 2 mm, and had an average particle diameter of about 0.8 mm and a particle of 1 mm or less. Obtained 72.5 kg of process flour cheese, which accounted for 70%. To this powdered cheese, 725 g of chitosan powder was uniformly added and mixed to obtain 73.225 kg of a fluid processed powdered cheese.

The powdered cheese was subjected to a storage test for 2.5 months under a temperature shock of 5 ° C. to 25 ° C., and as a result, the commercial product used as a control for the blocking ratio was 74.4%, whereas the powdered cheese according to Example 2 was used. Was 39.0%, about a half, and the blocking was improved.

Example 3 100 g of the chitosan powder used in Example 2 was uniformly mixed with 10 kg of the coarsely ground type powdered cheese obtained in Example 1 to obtain 10.1 kg of fluid process powdered cheese.

The powdered cheese was subjected to a storage test for 2.5 months under a temperature shock of 5 ° C. to 25 ° C., and as a result, a better anti-blocking effect was obtained than the case where the product particle size was adjusted and chitosan was added and stored alone.

(Effect of the Invention) In the present invention, the particle size of the powdered cheese is
By adjusting to contain 5% or more, or by adding and mixing chitosan powder to powdered cheese, or by using both, mutual blocking of powdered cheese is prevented, and the powdered cheese becomes smooth. Maintain and increase product value.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an example of the particle size distribution of powdered cheese obtained by the method of the present invention and the particle size distribution of commercially available powdered cheese. Is the powdered cheese obtained by the method of the present invention, Indicates that of a commercially available powdered cheese.

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-61-224933 (JP, A) JP-A-59-2653 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁶ , DB name) A23C 1/00-23/00

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] Claims: 1. A process-type powdered cheese in which blocking is prevented, comprising 75% or more of particles having a particle size of 1.0 mmφ or more. 2. A method for crushing one or more kinds of raw material cheese,
Mixing, heating and melting, cooling, and coarse-grinding to contain 75% or more of particles having a particle size of 1.0 mmφ or more. 3. A powdered cheese in which blocking is prevented, wherein chitosan powder is added to and mixed with the powdered cheese. 4. The powdered cheese contains 75% of particles having a particle diameter of 1.0 mm or more.
Claim (3) characterized in that it contains the above.
Flour cheese that prevents blocking