Up-scaling cream cheese production by 100 l per day cow milk using bromelain as rennet alternative

• Main Author: Amid, Azura
• Format: Monograph
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: TP248.13 Biotechnology
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/71378/1/PRGS-Bromelain%20Cream%20Cheese-Profile%20Report.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/71378/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Rennet has been used as the coagulant agent since the beginning of cheese making. However, the halal status of rennet is still categorized as unsure for Muslim. While the recombinant chymosin is too expensive to be used for local manufacturing. Therefore, there is a need to find a substitute for rennet for cheese making process especially for a Muslim country like Malaysia. The working principle is based on the proteolytic activity of bromelain. It is a hypothesis and proved that bromelain could coagulate milk protein casein similar to rennet. Bromelain, a plant protease has been tested as a coagulant enzyme in the manufacturing processes of cream cheese in our previous study. Coagulant activity of bromelain on casein milk has been observed and gave a promising result. A preliminary evaluation of the cream cheese flavor has been carried out by the 5-point hedonic scale, and it showed that cream cheese made of bromelain have 70 % characteristic similar to the commercial cream cheese. This proved that bromelain is a suitable coagulant enzyme for making cream cheese with pleasant cheese flavor. However, those studies were carried out on the laboratory scale. Therefore, this study employed a pre-commercialized scale in making cream cheese using bromelain as the coagulating agent. Our finding shows that the result from a bench scale study can be scale up. The bromelain cream cheese has attracted a company named Semarak 16 Sdn Bhd to license this product for 2 years. The output of this study will benefit a company like Lembaga Susu Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Palma Brand Sdn Bhd, and The Holstein Milk Company Sdn Bhd in term of new product development. Not to forget, Malaysian will also benefit from the project by getting healthy food, cheaper, locally made with clear halal status cheese in our local store.