Membrane Technologies Applied to Cheese Milk

Membrane treatments in the dairy field can be found in a number of operations, applied both to milk and whey, ranging from concentration to debacterization and fractionation of groups of compounds. Furthermore, they can be used for other purposes such as recycling brines and processing waters, and physical sterilization of solutions to be used as governing liquid. This chapter deals with applications to milk and whey in connection with the cheese‐making process. Together with bactofugation, microfiltration (MF) is currently the only technique that is available at the industrial level for debacterizing milk without any heating treatments. Besides the production of consumption milk with extended shelf life, MF can be applied to cheese milk for the production of dairy products with improved microbiological characteristics. The economic benefit of MF in cheese manufacture strongly depends on individual skill of the system management, the type, and local price of the product.