Textural and physico-chemical characteristics of white brined goat cheeses made from frozen milk and curd. The use of square I - distance statistics

Objective of this study was to investigate the effect of short term frozen storage of milk and curd on textural properties and physico-chemical composition of white brined goat cheese. Raw milk and curds (at various stages of pressing) were frozen and kept for seven days at -27 °C. Following the freezing, all the experimental cheeses were manufactured by the standard procedure, the same that was used for the control cheese sample which did not undergo freezing at any stage of production. The Square I distance was used in order to rank the cheeses according to their similarity to the control cheese in terms of texture attributes and physico-chemical characteristics. The results show that, in terms of all examined variables, the cheese made from frozen milk is the most similar to the control cheese.