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Received Dec 6, 2017; Revised Mar 12, 2018; Accepted Mar 19, 2018
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1. Introduction
Cheese texture can be considered as one of the most important parameters for determining the quality and the identity of the cheese and to estimate the sensory appreciation of the structure [1–3]. During ripening and storage, the textural properties of various cheeses can deeply change as a result of biochemical processes and mass transfer phenomena. The temporal variability of several cheeses has been extensively discussed for parameters such as proteolysis and pH [4–6], moisture and salts [7, 8], texture [2], and microstructure [9]. For nonstretched fresh soft cheeses like Crescenza, the residual rennet activity has a main influence in leading proteolysis phenomena as other proteolytic agents such as enzymes from the starter bacteria have a limited action due to the short storage period [10]. As for the ripening time, also a certain variability of the chemical and physical properties associated with spatial nonhomogeneity could be present. Many authors studied the influence of the different location on several parameters: for instance, Simal et al. [11] described the diffusion of water and salts in the cheese matrix; Macedo et al. [12] described the spatial variability of microflora, lactic acid, NaCl, and moisture content of Serra cheese; Liu and Puri [13, 14] studied the spatial variability of moisture and pH of Camembert. Also for textural properties, a spatial diversity could be present. In cheesemaking manufacture, steps, such as syneresis, brining, cooling, and ripening, can generate gradients of mass and/or heat that could contribute to the formation of a nonhomogeneous texture among the cheese geometry [4]. Moreover, also the storage time can influence the spatial nonhomogeneity; some spatial differences present at the end of cheesemaking can increase during storage, while other differences can be flattened [15]. Studies regarding the possible spatial nonhomogeneity of textural properties have already been reported in literature for different cheeses [4, 8, 15–18]. In these cases, the observed differences were mainly caused by moisture, NaCl, pH, and proteolysis gradients. On the contrary, the spatial nonhomogeneity has never been investigated for soft...
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