The most common one of the «Pasta Filata» group is «Mozzarella», a soft Italian cheese that is now made from cow's milk and widely used in many dishes, especially as a pizza topping, which is the most popular food for young people. The paper substantiates the express technology for the production of soft cheese like «Mozzarella». The first batch of Mozzarella-type soft cheese was made using traditionally accepted technology. Another batch of cheese samples was made using express technology. In contrast to traditional technology, an aqueous solution of citric acid was added to the normalized mixture before making the main components, thereby instantly increasing the active acidity, which reduced the duration of the cheddarization process of the cheese mass. Other technological operations were similar to traditional technology. The research results show that during the production of experimental batches of cheese at the stage of cheese curd formation, the milk coagulation process in the samples obtained by traditional technology took an average of 42,3 min ± 1,45 min, whereas in the samples of experimental batch № 2, this process was much faster, only 15,7 min ± 2,40 min by adding an aqueous citric acid solution. The research results have established that the production of the soft cheese type «Mozzarella» by express technology leads to the reduction of the technological process, namely to decrease (by 9 times) the duration of cheddarization of the cheese mass which produces the necessary consistency (pH 5,3-5,2) for the further melting and stretching the cheese dough. The output of the finished product under the various technologies of production of soft «Mozzarella» cheese was almost at the same level. Thus, the weight of cheese of experimental batch № 1 on average was 829 g ± 12,66, respectively, the mass of cheese of batch № 2 - 847 g ± 14,36. The tasting assessment on a point scale showed that all tested cheese lots, regardless of the production technology had rather high points (41.8-42.0) and had perfect organoleptic characteristics that are typical for the type of cheese understudy and meets the standard requirements. In general, the analysis of these studies showed that the production of soft cheese, such as «Mozzarella» by the express technology, namely the use of citric acid leads to a minimal time of the cheddarization process. Reduces the clotting time of milk and the formation of the cheese mass of the necessary consistency for further melting and extraction, which in turn causes the technological process of production of the finished product to be reduced altogether.
Justification of express technology in the «Pasta Filata» group cheese production