ripening time influence on free fatty acid and free amino acid changes of traditional kurdish cheese

traditional raw milk cheese is one of the most consuming cheeses in the world. kurdish cheese is a semi-firm, traditionally made in the east of iran. it is manufactured from raw sheep or cow milk and kept in goat’s skin bags during ripening period. as a result kurdish cheese is often more complex in different varieties of microorganisms, which whose organoleptic properties make it highly esteemed. changes in free fatty acid (ffa) and free amino acids (faa), could have great importance in kurdish cheese final characteristics. in this project, changes in ffa and faa contents of iranian kurdish cheese, in local condition, during 10, 30, 50 and 70 days of ripening periods were evaluated. most ffa significantly increased throughout maturation (p<0.05). oleic acids c18:1 palmitoleic acid c16:1 content increased during ripening and was the most abundant ffa in kurdish cheese at the end of ripening. free amino acids showed an important increase throughout maturation (p<0.05), especially proline, alpha-aminobutyric acid, glycine, methionine, leucine, arginine, threonine, phenylalanine and isoleucine . reasults showed that, proteolytic activity significantly increased during the last months of maturation; however, lipolytic activity did not significantly change during ripening.