The Action of Rennet and of Heat on Milk

368. Deterioration on storage of dried skim milk

1. Three spray-dried separated milk powders with moisture contents of 2·9, 4·7 and 7·3% (3 hr. air oven) or 3·0, 5·0 and 7·6% (20 hr. vacuum oven) were packed in air and in almost pure nitrogen, in gas-tight cans, and stored at 20·0, 28·5 and 37° C, for a period of nearly 2 years.

2. The powders were examined at intervals for palatability, colour, pH, equilibrium relative humidity (indicating crystallization of the lactose), conversion of β-lactose to α-lactose hydrate, decrease in total soluble lactose, absorption of oxygen, production of carbon dioxide, solubility in water at 20 and at 50 or 60° C, changes in the distribution of soluble nitrogen, reducing power towards potassium ferricyanide, base-binding capacity, formol titration, weight of the undialysable fraction, free amino-nitrogen by the Van Slyke method, sugar attached to the protein, and bacterial content.

370. The reaction between milk protein and reducing sugar in the ‘dry’ state

‘Dry’, dialysed milk protein was stored for 6 months at 37° C. and 55% relative humidity alone and in the presence of small proportions of glucose, of high proportions of lactose and of sucrose, and of mixtures of these sugars.

The reducing sugars combined with free amino-groups of the protein, apparently in a 1:1 ratio; sucrose did not. The reaction did not proceed to completion, probably owing to difficulty of access of the reactive groups to one another. Only when the sugar-amino reaction occurred did discoloration ensue.

Glucose reacted more rapidly with the protein than did lactose, and the complex formed became discoloured and insoluble in both cold and hot water much more rapidly.

Sucrose and lactose both greatly delayed the onset of glucose-induced insolubility, lactose being the more efficient of the two. They did not prevent discoloration.

The protein alone became insoluble in cold but not in hot water after prolonged storage; but did not discolour. This change was prevented by sucrose. The behaviour of lactose was inconsistent, loss of solubility being accelerated in one experiment and retarded in another.