Indian Agricultural Resources - Dairy Milk Products

In recent years there has been wide spread and increasing interest through out the world in creating newer channels of utilization for the by-products of the dairy industry. Conversion of edible substances into non-food items is not ordinarily justifiable especially in countries where there is an overall shortage of milk supplies. It has always been realized that economic disposal of by-products is an essential perquisite to profitable dairying.

A dairy by-product may be defined as a product of commercial value produced today the manufacture of a main product.

Main product	By-product
Cream	Skim milk
Butter	Butter milk
Ghee	Lassi Ghee residue
Chhana/Paneer Cheese Casein	Whey

Name of by-product (from cow milk)	Composition
Name of by-product (from cow milk)	Water	Fat	Protein	Lactose	Ash
Skim milk	90.6	0.1	3.6	5.0	0.7
Butter milk (sweet cream)	91.0	0.4	3.4	4.5	0.7
Lassi	96.2	0.8	1.4	1.2	0.4
Ghee residue (sweet-cream butter)	9.7	61.4	24.8	-	4.1
Chhana whey	93.6	0.5	0.4	5.1	0.4
Cheese whey	93.1	0.3	0.9	4.9	0.6
Acid-casein-whey	93.1	0.1	1.0	5.1	0.7

By-product	Food products made
Skim milk	Flavoured milks
	Sterilized flavoured milk
	Cultured butter milk Acidophilus milk Bulgarian buttermilk
	Concentrated sour skim milk
	Plain condensed skim milk Sweetened condensed skim milk Low-lactose condensed skim milks (Frozen condensed skim milk)
	Dried skim milk
	Cottage cheese/Bakers' cheese/Quarg Gammelost/Sapsago Casein (edible)
Buttermilk	Condensed buttermilk
Whey	Whey beverage Yeast whey Sweetened condensed milk Whey paste
Lassi	Beverage
Ghee - residue	Toffee or paste

Ghee is a clarified butter fat prepared from cow or buffalo milk. The largest ghee producing states are U.P, A.P, Punjab, Rajasthan, M.P, Bihar, Hariyana etc. The production of ghee is higher in winter and lower in summer.

Method of preparation: - cream accumulated after few days is usually taken in a suitable vessel and heated and stirred on a low flame to remove the moisture contain. After removing moisture contain further heating is stopped then cooling is done. On cooling, when the residue has settled down the clear fat is decanted into suitable containers.

Characteristics	Cow	Buffalo
Milk fat	99 to 99.5%
Moisture	Not more than 0.5%
Unsaponiable matter
Carotene (m g./g.)	3.2-7.4	-
Vit. A (I.U./g.)	19-34	17-38
Charred casein, salts of copper and iron, etc.	Max.2.8 (Agmark) Traces

Lassi, also called chhas or matha, refers to desi buttermilk, which is the by-product obtained when churning curdled whole milk with crude indigenous devices for the production of desi butter (makkhan). It appears that 50-60kg. (ave.55kg) of lassi are producted for every kg of ghee. Lassi contains appreciable amounts of milk proteins and phospholipids.

Characteristics	Milk(%)
Water	96.2
Total solids	3.8
Fat	0.8
Solids-not-fat	3.0
Protein	1.3
Lactose	1.2
Ash	0.4
Lactic acid	0.44

The production of soft cheese from creamery buttermilk may be outlined as follows; fresh buttermilk, obtained by churning sweet-cream butter, is admixed with fresh skim milk in the proportion of 1:1. The mixture is pasteurized at 65⁰C for 20 minutes, cooled to 35⁰C, inoculated with lactic starter @ 10 per cent and allowed setting for 3 hours. The curd is cut with standard cheese knives and the curd cubes subjected to a cooking process during which a maximum of 40⁰C is reached in 15-20 minutes. The curd cubes are then collected in a muslin cloth and pressed overnight, preferably inside cold store (5-10⁰C), to remove excess moisture. The pressed curd, which has a rather low keeping quality, can be utilized either for direct consumption after the addition of sugar @ 15 per cent, or in the manufacture of processed cheese up to 10 per cent of raw cheese.