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Enzymes in the Dairy Industry

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Cherno Okafor
Aida Stefani
SBI4U
Octover 20th, 2012

Assignment 1: Cellular Biology furthers technology-Enzymes in the Dairy Industry Since ancient times, enzymes have played an important role in food production. Especially in the diary industry, some enzymes are required for the production of cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products, while others are used in a more specialized fashion such as improving texture or flavour of the product. Enzymes are used to catalyze the desirable reactions in industrial processes. Today, enzyme applications in such processing get more difficulties because of the rare occurrence and high costs. The aim of using the microbial enzymes is to achieve this problem. Five of the more common types of microbial …show more content…

This prevents the use of concentrated whey syrups in many food processes as they have an unpleasant sandy texture and are readily prone to microbiological spoilage. Adding to this problem, the disposal of such waste whey is expensive due to its high biological oxygen demand. These problems may be overcome by hydrolysis of the lactose in whey; the product being about four times as sweet, much more soluble and capable of forming concentrated, microbiologically secure, syrups. Technologically, lactose crystallizes easily which sets limits to certain processes in the dairy industry, and the use of lactase to overcome this problem has not reached its fullest potential because of the associated high costs. Moreover, the main problem associated with discharging large quantities of cheese whey is that it pollutes the environment. But, the discharged whey could be exploited as an alternate cheap source of lactose for the production of lactic acid by fermentation.
In the production of cheese, hydrogen peroxide is a potent oxidizer and toxic to cells. Catalase enzymes are used are used instead of pasteurization, when making certain cheeses such as Swiss, in order to preserve natural milk enzymes that are beneficial to the end product and flavour development of the cheese. Due to pasteurization, these enzymes would be destroyed by the high heat. Therefore, Catalase enzymes are typically added to convert to the hydrogen

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