Elaboration and acceptability of a Roncal-type fat-reduced ewe's milk cheese

Cheese was made from full-fat (8%), reduced-fat (4%), and low-fat (2%) ewe's milk using the traditional manufacturing process for Roncal cheese , a raw ewe's milk cheese. The full-fat milk had the shortest coagulation time and the firmest curd. The experimental results indicated that decreasing the fat content of the cheese milk led to a significant decrease of the fat in dry matter and moisture in the non-fat substance in cheeses, whereas the moisture content increased. The results for the consumer preference trials showed that the 60-day-old low-fat cheese batch was awarded quite different scores than the other batches, especially concerning the texture attributes. Good reduced-fat ewe's milk cheese of acceptable overall quality can be produced from reduced-fat milk using a shorter (60 d) than normal (120 d) ripening time.