With a much higher fat and protein content than cow’s milk, cheese from whale milk will have a smoother, creamier texture.
Cheese is produced from milk, but is usually limited to certain species such as cows, goats, sheep and buffalo. According to Dr. James Reynolds at Loughborough University, UK, it is theoretically possible to produce cheese from any type of mammalian milk. The main obstacles preventing people from producing cheese from whale milk are mainly related to ethics, safety and practicality, as capturing a 150,000 kg whale for milk is often considered inhumane. unethical, unintelligent and not a profitable project.
“Whale milk – if you get it somehow – can be made into cheese. However, research on blue whale and fin whale milk in the journal Nature 1953 showed that the fat and protein content in whale milk is much higher than cow’s milk. The fat content is approximately 40% and the protein content is 10 – 12%, while in Jersey cow milk it is 4% and 3.3% respectively. Meanwhile, lactose levels were recorded to be lower,” Reynolds said.
“With that much fat in the milk sample, the whale cheese will have a smooth, creamy texture,” Reynolds said. Additionally, whale cheese can also be a bit fishy. The few people who have tried boiled penguin eggs have confirmed that a marine diet greatly affects the taste.
So if whale milk is collected, how can it be turned into cheese? “According to an American study, milk consists of 87.7% water, 4.7% lactose, 3.6% fat, 3.2% protein and 0.7% minerals. Lactose and a group of milk proteins called casein (accounting for about 80% of total milk protein) plays an important role in the process of converting milk into cheese,” Reynolds explains.
Much of the cheese making process begins with heating to 70 degrees Celsius to pasteurize the milk and kill pathogens. Then two key ingredients are added: cultured bacteria and a group of enzymes called rennet. The main enzyme in rennet is chymosin.
Next, this mixture is fermented. As bacteria grow and divide, the lactose in milk becomes their energy source. The conversion of lactose lowers the pH until the mixture becomes acidic enough for the enzyme chymosin to act, causing the casein protein to coagulate and the milk to coagulate. This process creates a thick curd that can be skimmed, cut and pressed into a mold to cook.
“Cheese can be ripened for different amounts of time. In general, the longer the ripening time, the stronger the flavor. At this stage, one can also add mushrooms to the cheese. The mushrooms will develop During the cheese ripening process, blue cheeses such as Roquefort and Stilton are added to mushrooms Roquefort brush to form the characteristic ridges that give them their flavor,” Reynolds said.
Changing any ingredient or changing the way a step is performed will result in differences in the cheese. Using other bacteria will also change the flavor of the cheese. For example, Cheddar cheese uses bacteria Lactobacillus and fermented at about 30 degrees Celsius, while many Italian cheeses such as Parmesan use thermophilic bacteria such as Streptococcus thermophilusfermented at a temperature of more than 40 degrees Celsius.