Kinetic Study of Milk Gellation by the Electrical Resistance Measurement

Changes in electric resistance was measured to carry out the kinetic analysis of milk gellation upon addition of rennet. Using pasteurized milk and commercial rennin, kinetic properties were investigated during milk gellation in terms of initial hydrolysis and coagulation steps. Specially designed reactor with two platinum electrodes was used throughout the experiments. As a function of either milk concentrations or reaction temperatures, gel time exhibited directly proportional relations: on the contrary, gel time was inversely pro-portional to enzyme concentration. Activation energies for enzymatic degradation and cogulation were 16.3, 4.6 and 34, 8.6 Kcal/mol, repectively. This simple analytical method proved to be very effective to characterize the mechanism of milk gellation. Moreover, unlike other methods, this method reguired simple apparatus and short time of analysis.