No abstract

No abstract

The heat treatment of milk greatly improves the acid gelation of milk and is therefore largely applied in yoghurt manufacture. During the heat treatment, soluble and micelle-bound whey protein/κ-casein complexes are produced in milk. The complexes and their physico-chemical properties have been held responsible for the early gelation point, the increased final firmness and for the serum retention capacity of the acid gels made of heated milk. They are suspected to bring new functionalities to the casein micelles and to help the formation of interactions when building the gel network. In order to investigate the type of interactions that the complexes can affect throughout the acid gelation of milk, an original strategy would be to control the physico-chemical properties of the whey protein/κ-casein soluble complexes and to use them as vectors to modify the possible interactions in the milk. In that perspective, the different physico-chemical properties of the whey protein/κ-casein soluble complexes that are thought to significantly affect the acid gelation behaviour of the casein micelles are listed. Then, the physical, chemical and biological means that could possibly be applied to the formation of complexes in order to modulate each of the targeted property are reviewed and evaluated. In order to open a large choice for future investigation, these methods were found in a larger literature resource than milk, including other protein systems like model whey protein solutions or non-dairy globular protein systems. The food-compatible