Physicochemical and microbiological evaluation of Gaúcho Colonial cheese

Abstract

Rio Grande do Sul's Colonial cheese is produced by families for their own consumption and informal sale, and by small and large dairy industries. Despite being widely produced, colonial cheese is not the object of systematic research. The objective of this article is to characterize the gaucho colonial cheese in relation to its physical-chemical and microbiological parameters and to verify if there are differences between the production in family agroindustry (FA) and homemade manufacturing (HM). Home manufacturing is characterized by small-scale production, carried out in the home kitchen, for family consumption, or for informal sale. For this, the sample size was calculated for a finite population based on the estimate of the population proportion, using the cluster sampling method, totaling 293 properties. Analyzes of titratable acidity, fat, moisture, chlorides, and ash were performed. And microbiological analyzes of thermotolerant coliforms, coagulase-positive Staphylococcus, Listeria, and Salmonella. Data were submitted for analysis of variance. The results found characterize colonial cheese as high in moisture and fat. The parameters that showed a difference between home manufacture and agro-industry were humidity (46.27g .100 g^-1 for FA and 47.56 g .100 g^-1 for HM), chlorides (0.98g .100 g^-1 for FA and 0.84g .100 g^-1 for HM) and maturation time (10.61 days for FA and 9.43 days for HM), which shows us that the family agroindustry matures colonial cheese for a longer period, reducing its humidity, and adds a greater amount chloride. The averages of microbiological counts of the analyzed cheese samples were, for both categories, higher than what is tolerated by the legislation, but they were lower in the family agroindustry category, demonstrating the importance of formalization for the provision of safe food.