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When should testing of cheese get completed

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ffkmm

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Posted 30 March 2018 - 03:54 PM

I am curious to know how others in the cheese world are testing product. We are a cheese manufacture plant and we make blue cheese along with a few other similar veining cheese plus some block cheeses.

 

When will it be the correct time to test blue cheese: After draining, brining, after curing or after packaging?

 

We currently do not finish the process of blue cheese making, but we do start the process up to taking cheese out of brine and bulk packaging. After we package our cheese  we ship it our for punching, curing, cutting and packaging. At our brining step, we pull a sample and test for coliform, e. coli, Y/M, Listeria and heterolactic.

 

We do at times get coliform counts which is probably due to sanitation issues of equipment or even employees, but after cheese sits it develops acids and will eventually kill all if not most coliform. So my question is it beneficial for me to even test this cheese after brining to get a final decision on whether I should dump this cheese for high coliform or should I just sit on it and just test it later, I'm just now sure how long I should sit on this cheese?

 

 



Tony-C

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Posted 02 April 2018 - 03:54 AM

Hi ffkmm,
 
I would be sampling at each point where there is potential for contamination. That way you know where your hygiene issue is, if you only test at the end of the process then it is more difficult to pinpoint where your issue originated.
 
Your history of testing should tell you how long to hold the cheese in order to get the required reduction. You should retest to confirm the result anyway.
 
Kind regards,
 
Tony


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FurFarmandFork

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Posted 02 April 2018 - 06:47 PM

Keep in mind that while coliform testing is helpful for gauging the microbial load in your product, it is not correlated with the presence or absence of pathogens, further, recent evidence suggests that the standard rule of aging cheese 60 days as a lethality step does not hold up under experimental and real conditions for pathogens.

 

Experimental and epidemiological evidence suggests that the 60-day aging rule used in the US and Canada is not a fail-safe approach to cheese safety, which has prompted the FDA to re-evaluate the efficacy of the rule and conduct a national survey of cheesemaking facilities.


Austin Bouck
Owner/Consultant at Fur, Farm, and Fork.
Consulting for companies needing effective, lean food safety systems and solutions.

Subscribe to the blog at furfarmandfork.com for food safety research, insights, and analysis.

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Tony-C

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Posted 05 April 2018 - 03:23 AM

You may also want to consider using the Enterobacteriaceae test as an indicator in preference to the Coliform test
 
 
Kind regards,
 
Tony




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