Pasta filata, an Italian term meaning "stretched paste," refers to a category of stretched or pulled curd cheeses, including fresh mozzarella, semi-soft Oaxaca cheese and aged Provolone and Kashkaval.
The stretching process aligns the protein strands, creating a characteristic fibrous structure, excellent stretch when melted, and a mild, buttery flavor in the final cheese.
With Natec Network equipment this process is automized and made continuous. We provide machines and innovative solutions for the industrial pasta filata cheese production.
Pasta filata cheeses may differ in terms of texture from soft, semi-soft to hard and semi-hard. Regardless of the variety, all pasta filata cheeses share a unique processing step represented by the immersion of the curd in hot water or salt brine, thus the curd plasticizes so that it can be (manually or mechanically) stretched and finally molded into a wide array of shapes.
Milk is pasteurized, acidified with bacterial cultures and enzymes, and coagulated to form a fresh curd.
Alternatively, Cagliata curd (an unripened, intermediate cheese product made from pasteurized milk, primarily used in the industrial production of pizza cheese toppings and grating) is chopped into smaller pieces as done by Grinders.
The fresh curd or chopped cagliata is then heated and kneaded to separate it from the whey, forming a semi-flowable mass. This step can be performed with wet cooker, which are heating batches of curd in hot water or brine, which softens it.
An innovative continuous method, which does not require hot water or brine, is performed with dry cookers like the EasyTherm for fresh curd or the RotaTherm for cagliata processing.
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The softened curd is then stretched, pulled, and kneaded, aligning the protein (casein) strands into a fibrous, stringy structure.
This step is included in the 2-in-1 EasyTherm solution or executed by the secondary working station (Finisher) of the RotaTherm.
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The resulting elastic, dough-like mass is then formed into the desired shapes, e. g. mozzarella balls, braids or blocks and then typically cooled in a cold water bath or brine.
For pizza cheese production blocks are shredded or diced into small pieces to be distributed evenly on pizza. To jump the time-consuming and labour-intensive process steps from forming blocks, cooling in cold water to shredding, the FreeSlice offers a continuous forming, cooling and shredding process to produce pizza cheese in just a few minutes.
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Standard Process Lines
