Milk presents very convenient environment for multiplying of microorganisms from the surroundings or from udder itself. To obtain milk correct in hygienic sense, except health milk glands, environmental factors which could contribute to additional milk contamination are important too. Failures in hygiene of milk, milkmen, milking environment or milking machines, as well as their technical accuracy, have primary importance in occurrence of udder diseases and therefore in milk quality too.

Syneresis is the process of whey separation induced by gel contraction resulting in rearranging or restructuring of casein matrix formed during enzymatic coagulation. Numerous factors can influence the process of syneresis. The influences of pH, calcium concentration, temperature of coagulation of milk and applied heat treatment on the syneresis induced by different intensity of centrifugal force have been investigated. Coagulated samples were centrifuged at 1000, 2000 and 3000 rpm for 5 min, respectively.

Technological operations applied during curd processing influence syneresis and total solids content of cheese. Syneresis is not a simple physical process representing whey segregation due to curd contractions. Numerous factors can influence the process of syneresis. The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of various parameters (pH, quantity of CaCl₂ added, temperature of coagulation and heat treatment) on induced syneresis.

The influence of milk dry matter (DM) content (8.20%, 9.27% and 10.28%) and applied heat treatments (untreated milk and milk heat-treated at 90°C/10’) on the viscosity of set-style yogurt and acid casein gel gained by acidification with GDL (glucono-d-lactone) has been investigated. Viscosity was measured during the time of 3 minutes at constant speed of spindle rotation of 20 rpm. The results have shown that yogurt samples produced from untreated milk had higher viscosity values than samples produced from heat-treated milk.

The influence of different drying temperatures of curd particles in order to obtain curd particles with chemical composition characteristic for Dutch-type semi-hard cheeses was investigated. The experiments were performed with heat-treated milk at 87ºC for 10 minutes to induce chemical interaction between casein and serum proteins and to form the co-called co aggregates. The curd particles were dried at 42ºC and 45ºC for 60 minutes and two types of curd, named curd A and curd B were formed afterwards.

The composition of curd A and curd B was investigated as influenced by the technological process known as curd washing after removing 1/3 or 1/2 of whey and replacing by the same volume of water at the drying temperatures of 42ºC and 45ºC, respectively. Milk used for experiments was heat-treated at 87ºC/10 min, during which the chemical complex between casein and whey proteins (milk protein co aggregates) was formed.

The composition of curd A and curd B was investigated as influenced by the technological process known as curd washing after removing 1/3 or 1/2 of whey and replacing by the same volume of water at the drying temperatures of 42ºC and 45ºC, respectively. Milk used for experiments was heat-treated at 87ºC/10 min, during which the chemical complex between casein and whey proteins (milk protein co aggregates) was formed. It is shown that the applied drying temperatures of 42ºC (curd A) and 45ºC (curd B) do not have significant influence on the curd composition.

The influence of pH (6.5 and 5.8), amount of added CaCl₂ (0, 200 and 400 mg/l)), coagulation temperature (30ºC and 35ºC) and heat treatment of milk (65ºC/30 min and 87ºC/10 min) on the rate of rennet induced milk coagulation (s) were investigated. The time (s) from rennet addition to onset of gelation (as indicated by the first visible floccules) was measured.