Potential use ofscotta, the by-product of the ricotta cheese manufacturing process, for the production of fermented drinks

Abstract

In the present work, the use of scotta as substrate for bacterial fermentation was studied with the objective of obtaining a drink from transformation of this by-product. Scotta retains most of the lactose of the milk and it is normally colonized by a natural microbiota. A treatment was devised to reduce the autochthonous microbial populations in order to reduce competition towards the inoculated bacterial strains. Nine lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were assessed for their capability to develop in scotta. They evidenced different behaviors regarding growth rate, acidification capability and nitrogen consumption. A co-inoculum of three LAB, namely a Streptococcus thermophilus, a Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and a Lb. acidophilus strains, chosen among those giving the best performances in single-strain fermentation trials, gave abundant (close to 10(9) cfu/ml) and balanced growth and lowered pH to 4.2, a value similar to that of yogurt. These results show that scotta may have potential as a substrate for bacterial growth for the production of a fermented drink. Further studies are needed to optimize the organoleptic aspects of the final product.

Enzymatic production of bioactive peptides from scotta, an exhausted by-product of ricotta cheese processing

“…Several industrial solutions were developed for the exploitation of whey dairy waste including biogas and ethanol production by fermentation [5], as food and feed ingredients [6] and as feedstocks for biopolymer production [7]. On the contrary, a lower amount of studies were performed on scotta, mainly dealing with bio-ethanol production [3, 8], bioconversion of lactose into lactic acid [9] and obtainment of fermented drinks by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) [10].…”

Dairy By-Products: A Review on the Valorization of Whey and Second Cheese Whey

“…For this reason, the transformation of SCW into useful products, besides being a remarkable approach for the reduction of its environmental impact, would allow its exploitation and valorization as a source of interesting compounds, similarly to what happened with whey in the last years. In this direction the European commission recommends the exploitation of by-products of the dairy industry as raw material for alternative processes [8].…”

“…Adapted from [28][29][30][31] 2.2 Second cheese whey (Sorelho) SCW is the by-product resulting from whey cheese production (e.g. Requeijão), whose manufacturing process consists basically of heat processing the whey at around 85-90 ºC for 20-30 minutes aiming at denaturing the whey proteins [8] (Figure 1). In most cases, as it happens with CW, small and medium companies are not able to valorize the SCW components for human consumption and this product is used as animal feed.…”

Stability of a dairy-based electrolyte replenishment beverage

“…Lactic acid was then added for the whey protein denaturation to occur. The mixture was cooled to 30 °C and the scotta separated (Maragkoudakis et al, 2016). Ot was then treated with lactase (EC 3.2.1.23) at a concentration of 0.1% (w v -1 ) and stored at 8 °C for 24 h.…”