"Sometimes they don't have the time to put together a cheese quality system that you might see in a bigger company. The smaller cheesemakers don't have a production department, a quality department, and a research and development department -- in the smaller operations you have a few people doing everything," she said
"They produce a poor batch of cheese -- or an exceptional batch -- and they may not be sure exactly how they did it. I realized that there are a lot of things that I took for granted about cheesemaking in working with some of the bigger companies that these guys just do not have time to record."
Kaylegian worked with three small-scale cheese-making operations to develop the Penn State Cheese Tracking System. She thanked Birchrun Hills Farm, Caputo Brothers Creamery and Hidden Hills Dairy for their participation in the study that led to the system, which was presented during the 2017 American Cheese Society conference in Denver. Lisa Caprera, who graduated with a degree in food science earlier this year, also was involved in the research.
The system was created using Microsoft Word and Excel to provide templates that can be customized by each cheesemaker based on his or her needs. The formats of the templates vary depending on their purpose. Some of the Excel worksheets contain columns that automatically calculate measurements of interest, and some have tables that automatically create graphs to aid in visualizing data trends.
The system consists of the following components:
Milk tracking
The Milk Tracking component tracks raw milk quality and composition parameters over time. Milk quality parameters include somatic cell counts and bacterial counts (standard plate count, total plate count or aerobic plate count). Milk composition parameters include fat, protein and milk solids.
Cheese Making
The Cheese Making component tracks information related to the primary manufacture of a cheese. This includes tracking raw materials and process data usually found on a batch sheet, such as times, temperatures and pH measurements observed during cheese-making steps. To facilitate visual evaluation of data trends, worksheets are designed to capture processes that occur within a period of eight to 24 hours, typically from vat to unhooping.
Post-Make-Day Processing
The Post-Make-Day Processing component tracks processes -- such as brining, washing, turning, aging and mold development -- that occur after the initial make-day. These lengthy processes, which can take several days to months, are separated from the activities that occur during the primary make-day to facilitate interpretation of data and graphs.
Cheese Composition
The Cheese Composition component tracks chemical composition parameters of a cheese by age. These parameters are moisture, salt, fat, protein and pH.
Sensory Evaluation
The Sensory Evaluation component tracks the cheesemaker's choice of sensory attributes for his or her cheese over time. Sensory evaluation of cheese involves a visual assessment, followed by an assessment of the flavor, aroma, body and texture. The evaluation can be done for specific attributes or more generally for overall quality.
The Penn State Cheese Tracking System can be found online here.
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