Seasonal production and small yield per animal are limiting factors when using goat's milk with consequent problems in the products supply, even in countries with well developed milk goat's herds located in temperate zones. The aim of this work was the production of a similar cheese to the "Pecorino Romano" using frozen goat's milk and frozen curd. The resultant cheeses was characterizing of the point of view organoléptic related with the cure. The experimental line was established to verify the effect of slow freezing and quick freezing of goat milk and curd in the sensory characteristics of the product, using the following treatments: Treatment 1 milk and curd without freezing, (N.F.); Treatment 2 slow freezing of the obtained curd, (S.F.C.); Treatment 3 quick freezing of the obtained curd, using liquid nitrogen, (Q.F.C.); Treatment 4 quick freezing of milk, using liquid nitrogen, (Q.F.M.); Treatment 5 slow freezing of milk, (S.F.M.). The sensory evaluation was performed after a 2 month period of cheese ripening by a panel composed by 10 tasters selected and trainned. The results indicated that there was a significant statistic difference among the treatments when submitted to a sensory evaluation after cheese ripening. For the analyzed attribute group it was possibly to consider that the treatment 4 had the best performance with high average for tast, flavor and hedonic scale and low average for acid flavor, off flavor, mechanic holes and or gaseous. This treatment showed, also, average low for spiced flavor, texture e consistency. The worst performance was for treatment 3 but the medium results did not disqualify it totally. Therefore, for the production of the studied cheese, goat's milk in natural conditions could be used (T1) during high milk production season and previously slow frozen milk, during small milk production season (T5).
Goat's milk; cheese; frozen goat milk; frozen curd
