Freezing point and other technological properties of milk of the Polish Coldblood horse breed

ABSTRACT Mare milk is a valued and sought-after raw material for the production of innovative dairy products. The high demand, low supply, high price, and lack of accurate characterization of the milk of a given horse breed may provoke its deliberate fraudulent dilution. The aim of this work was to analyze the freezing point against a background of various selected technological parameters of Polish Coldblood mare milk. Research was carried out on multiparous Polish Coldblood mares from 5 to 8 yr of age with live weights between 618 and 851 kg. Their milk was tested on d 1, 3, and 7 postpartum and once a month for the next 9 mo of lactation (n = 52). Milk from 13 mares, taken daily in mo 4 of lactation, was collected for the dilution study (n = 403). The basic composition of the milk was as follows: solids-not-fat, 84.4 g/kg, fat 15.1 g/kg, lactose 65.3 g/kg, and total protein 24.2 g/kg (made up of casein, 14.6 g/kg, and whey protein, 9.5 g/kg). The dominant amino acids were glutamic acid, proline, leucine, and aspartic acid. The mean freezing point during a 9-mo lactation was −0.557°C (coefficient of variation = −2.787; 5th to 95th percentile: −0.563 to −0.550°C). Based on our analysis, we adopted −0.550°C (from 3 to 6 mo) as the reference value for milk from the Polish Coldblood horse. Analysis of the model of changes in freezing point, after dilution, using the coefficient of determination and Akaike's information criterion, showed that a linear model could be recommended (y = 79.35 + 144.35x). Addition of 1% water increased the freezing point of Polish Coldblood mare milk by 0.0069°C.