The current investigation was conducted to study the effect of Persian gum (PG) and microbial transglutaminase (MTGase) on textural characteristics of ultrafiltrated semi-fat white cheese during 60 days of cold storage. In order to produce semi-fat cheeses, PG was used at three levels of 0, 0.25, and 0.5% and MTGase enzyme at three levels of 0, 0.5 and 1 unit (U) per gram of protein. Cheese samples without any treatment were considered as control samples. The findings of this study revealed that addition of PG, opposite to MTGase, caused a significant reduction of the cheese pH values (p < 0.05). During the storage period, the pH values of all cheese samples decreased, but statistically there was a significant difference only between the first and 30th days of storage. During the storage period, the addition of PG led to a decrease in the amount of hydration of the samples until the 30th day of storage, but then the amount of hydration of the samples increased until the end of the 60th day. The results obtained from the analysis of the texture characteristics revealed that MTGase treatment up to 0.5 U decreased the firmness, gumminess, springiness and chewability and increased the adhesiveness of the cheese samples, but using a higher amount of the enzyme (1 U) caused a significant contrary change in the mentioned trend (p>0.001). Also, the addition of PG decreased the firmness, cohesiveness, gumminess, springiness and chewability and increased the adhesiveness of the cheese samples (p < 0.001). In general, with the passage of time during the cold storage, all the textural parameters, except adhesiveness, decreased significantly. The results of this research showed that it is possible to produce cheese with good quality by using the levels of 0.25 to 0.5% PG and 0.5 units of MTGase.
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