Impact of selected composition and ripening conditions on CO2 solubility in semi-hard cheese

• Published in: Food chemistry 2016-02, Vol.192, p.805-812
• Main Authors: Acerbi, F., Guillard, V., Guillaume, C., Gontard, N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Calcium - analysis; Calcium - chemistry; Carbon dioxide; Carbon Dioxide - chemistry; Cheese - analysis; Food engineering; Food Handling - methods; Life Sciences; Semi-hard cheese; Solubility
• ISSN: 0308-8146; 1873-7072
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.07.049

•We improved a chemical based methodology for assessing CO2 solubility in cheese.•We validated Henry’s law in semi-hard cheese between 0 and 1atm.•CO2 solubility decreases linearly with increasing temperature in range 2–25°C.•CO2 solubility significantly decreases with increasing salt content (0–2.7%w/w). Despite CO2 being one of the most important gases affecting the quality of most semi-hard cheeses, the thermodynamic properties of this molecule in relation to cheese ripening have rarely been investigated. In this study the CO2 solubility coefficient was experimentally assessed in semi-hard cheese as a function of the most relevant compositional and ripening variables. As expected, CO2 solubility was found to linearly decrease with temperature in the range 2–25°C. Unexpectedly, solubility was not significantly different at 39% and 48% moisture, while it was found lower at 42%. Unavoidable changes in protein content of the three cheese variants is suspected to produce an interaction with water content, leading to complex interpretation of the results. Increasing salt content in cheese from 0 to 2.7%w/w significantly decreased CO2 solubility by about 25%, probably due to the increased bonded water molecules in the cheese water phase.