Changes of Organic Acids and Free Fatty Acids During the Ripening of Emmental Cheese

The objective of this study was to characterize the lactate metabolism and lipolysis in Emmental cheese made of Korean raw milk throughout the ripening periods; 14 d at 10 degrees C, 42 d at 23 degrees C, and 30 d at 4 degrees C. Emmental cheese was made using a commercial starter culture with propionic acid bacteria (PAB) and without PAB as a control on the pilot plant scale. Changes in the contents of five organic acids (citric, lactic, formic, acetic, and propionic acid) and individual free fatty acids (FFAs) were measured using HPLC/PDA and GC/FID. As a result of propionic fermentation by PAB, the concentration of acetic acid and propionic acid increased up to 1.5 and 6.1 g/kg, respectively and the most dramatic increased occurred when incubated in the hot room (23 degrees C). Lactic, citric, and formic acid contents were 2.6, 2.5 and 0.8 g/kg at the end of ripening, respectively. As a result of lipolysis, the amount of total FFAs was 6,628.2 mg/kg. Compared to the control, levels of individual FFAs from butyric (C6:0) to linoleic (C18:2) acids increased significantly (p < 0.05) during the ripening period. Especially, 65.1% of total FFAs was released in the 23 C room and the most abundant FFAs were palmitic (C16:0), stearic (C18:0) and oleic acid (C18:1). These results demonstrated that the lipolysis of Emmental cheese was strongly affected by bacterial lipase from PAB.