Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Fermentation processes – Of milk or milk product
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-30
2003-11-18
Hendricks, Keith (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Fermentation processes
Of milk or milk product
C426S036000, C426S038000, C426S056000, C426S582000, C426S574000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06649199
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a process for manufacturing fermented food products. More particularly, it relates to the use of the cell contents of micro-organisms in order to reduce the duration of the ripening phase and to improve the organoleptic properties of these products.
PRIOR ART OF THE INVENTION
The processes for manufacturing fermented products may be divided into two major steps:
preparation of the product for fermentation,
ripening or maturation of this product, during which the constituents of the raw material are converted by the action of physical or biological factors, such as enzymes, certain of which are of microbial origin.
This second phase is often quite long. For obvious economic reasons, the use of different means has already been envisaged in order to shorten its duration. In the field of milk products, they consist of:
physical means: patent WO-A-8705470 describes the use of a magnetic field to accelerate the ripening of cheeses. Another patent recommends increasing the pressure;
microbiological means: certain patents describe the addition of particular micro-organisms in order to shorten the ripening period. Thus, patent EP 0 365 173 mentions the use of a novel micro-organism, while patents SU-A-1 353401 and NL-A-8700176 each refer to the addition of a particular lactobacillus with a normal lactococcus flora. Patent EP 0 304 119 describes the use of a concentrate obtained from fermentation products of components of cheese by the action of micro-organisms having a proteolytic, lipolytic or peptidolytic activity;
enzymatic means: certain patents describe the addition of an enzyme such as a protease, (EP 0 246 163), a fruit protease (JP-A-062661682), and a lipase extracted from a strain of Aspergillus (EP 0 167 309);
combination of means: certain processes envisage the addition to the raw material of an enzyme and a micro-organism in order to accelerate ripening. Patent CA 2 072 159 describes the use of a neutrase and a heated lactobacillus while patent EP 469 857 mentions the addition of a lactobacillus and a lipase or a protease.
The process described in patent EP 0 337 497 concerns the manufacture of fermented products and enables the maturation of these products to be accelerated by adding extracts of cells of one or more usual micro-organisms to the mass of raw material.
However, no proportions or indications are given as to the number of different types of micro-organisms making up the solution added to the raw material. Moreover, the examples, and more particularly example 2, emphasise that this process encourages the development of one or more flavours but does not deal with the ripening process in its entirety.
The description of the process made in this patent application thus does not indicate any technical means capable of resolving a problem in a reproducible manner.
The invention described in patent EP 0 058 856 concerns a process for the preparation of flavoured food products enabling the maturation time for the products to be reduced.
According to this invention, the flavouring and acceleration of the maturation process are brought about by the addition of an already fermented mass to the raw material and not by the direct addition of ripening factors. This mass is obtained by adding isolated enzyme complexes, derived from pure or mixed cultures of the usual micro-organisms, to a fraction of the material to be flavoured. The acceleration of ripening thus relies on the special treatment applied to this fraction.
Patent FR 2 368 224 claims the use of a purified protease extracted from a mould and an autolysate of the cells of a lactic bacterium as the proteolytic enzyme source.
Finally, patents U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,991 and EP 0 159 303 describe the addition to milk, after treatment, of an extract of micro-organisms normally used in the manufacture of cheese.
these extracts include one or more enzymes. Reading these two texts shows that:
these inventions relate to the addition of extracts having only a proteolytic action,
the extract mentioned is always produced from a very limited number of different micro-organism strains, which belong to the group of lactic bacteria.
It thus follows from a study of the prior art that:
many solutions have been envisaged for accelerating the ripening of fermented products;
these use different means;
if the means are microbiological, the micro-organism, or exceptionally micro-organisms, used are almost exclusively lactic bacteria;
if the means are enzymatic, it relates to a single enzyme family which is almost always that of proteases. Moreover, when the enzyme is derived from a micro-organism, this extract is partially or totally purified.
In the field of cured meat products, the processes used remain traditional and the acceleration of ripening has consequently not been studied.
Up to now, the solutions proposed to shorten the ripening phase of a fermented product using micro-organisms or their enzymes therefore aims almost solely at encouraging the biochemical processes brought about by lactic bacteria.
In addition, although the solutions of the prior art exhibit a certain efficiency as regards the shortening of the ripening phase, they still too often provide a final product having unsatisfactorily organoleptic properties. Indeed, whatever the acceleration process used, the product obtained generally exhibits an attenuation of flavours and unctuousness of the paste due to the attenuation of proteolysis or lipolysis. In order to compensate for this phenomenon, the tendency has been to modify the technology by increasing the fat content and to remove lactose during draining. The quality of the final product is however often very variable.
It should finally be noted that the manufacturing conditions (pH, temperature, duration of certain phases, addition of compounds etc.) for a given fermented food product are very strict. The biochemical reactions occurring during maturation are numerous, complex and sequential. Their combination is poorly understood and the intervention of a new factor, even an apparently simple one, in a ripening process always has consequences which are difficult to estimate.
OBJECT OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention compared with the prior art is to shorten still further the ripening phase of fermented food products and to improve their organoleptic properties.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns a method for preparing and using the cell contents of a complete collection of micro-organisms for ripening fermented food products.
It more particularly concerns an improved process for manufacturing fermented food products such as cheeses or cured meat products by adding the cell contents of this collection to the components of the starting material.
In the normal process for manufacturing fermented products, the raw material is subjected to various treatments before the product is stored for ripening.
For a milk product, after standardization and if necessary heat treatment of the milk, the following stages are carried out, among others:
coagulation or precipitation of the curds; this is obtained by the addition of enzymes (rennet) or by acidification of the raw material; it may also be combined (rennet and acidifying compounds). To this stage of the process, according to the desired final product and the particular operating conditions, technological flora may be added (lactic ferment and/or ripening microbial flora, known as secondary flora).
draining: this separates the whey from the curds so as to bring the latter to a particular water content and so as to adjust mineralization. At the start of this phase, cutting and washing, stirring or furthermore pressing, washing and moulding may be carried out according to the final product desired.
salting: this acts on the bound water by changing the water bonds to the substrate. Accordingly, it completes draining, acts on the development of micro-organisms and consequently influences ripening and contributes to the flavour of the cheese,
ripening: this corresponds to the enzymatic diges
Biosaveurs
Hendricks Keith
Tolpin Thomas W.
Welsh & Katz Ltd.
LandOfFree
Process for manufacturing a fermented food product using... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Process for manufacturing a fermented food product using..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Process for manufacturing a fermented food product using... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3144519