adjunct starter cultures in Gouda cheese production
Adjunct starter cultures are of interest in pasteurized cheese production as they provide additional flavor, ensure reproducible quality, and enable a faster ripening. In the current study, two adjunct culture strains were selected, namely a strain of Lacticaseibacillus paracasei, isolated from mature Gouda cheese, and a strain of Tetragenococcus halophilus, isolated from a Gouda cheese brine. So far, the use of a Tetragenococcus strain in cheese production has not been reported yet. Both strains were applied in pilot-scale Gouda cheese productions and the cheeses were investigated up to 32 weeks of ripening by a multiphasic approach encompassing culture-dependent and culture-independent microbiological analysis, meta-metabolomics, and organoleptic evaluations. In the case of the Lacc. paracasei strain, three batches with each time a different primary starter culture mixture were produced to investigate the effect of the primary starter culture mixture on the adjunct starter culture.