Quark and Baker‘s Cheese production

GEA Westfalia Separator developed the Thermoquark process for optimum production of quark. This makes it possible to precipitate the nutritionally valuable whey proteins, bind them covalently to the caseins and add them quantitatively to the cream cheese. This has enabled yield to be improved. The extra thermal treatment of the coagulated milk increases shelf life to up to 30 days. The product baker‘s cheese (quark for bakeries) is a cream cheese with a dry matter of 20% produced mainly in the USA and Eastern Europe. Baker‘s cheese is made using a Thermoquark line with a change to the heat treatment of skimmed and cheese milk.

Quark has the largest market share by some margin of all products from the soft cheese range. This is due not least to its nutritional value. Quark contains plenty of essential amino acids. Its high content of high-quality protein, calcium and phosphorus, as well as its low calorie content, give low-fat quark in particular great significance in diet foods. To make quark, skimmed milk is fermented by the addition of lactic acid bacteria and / or rennet so that it clots, enabling separators to separate the solid constituents from the liquid ones. Cream is added depending on the fat content desired.

The Thermoquark process allows the nutritionally valuable whey proteins to be precipitated, bound covalently to the caseins and added quantitatively to the soft cheese. This has allowed yield to be increased by approx. 10 percent. The extra heat treatment of the coagulated milk also increases shelf life to up to 30 days. It is due not least to these benefits that the Thermo process has made broad inroads in the industry and is now used in over 90 percent of all quark production.

The nozzle separators were developed especially for the production of soft cheese products and their economic mode of operation is convincing. The special machine design allows cheese factories to minimize product losses and achieve a higher yield, it being possible to set precisely the consistency of the soft cheese or the proportion of dry matter and control this fully automatically.