Food Science and Applied Biotechnology, 2023, 6(1), 47-55 Food Science and Applied Biotechnology Journal home page: www.ijfsab.com https://doi.org/10.30721/fsab2023.v6.i1 ✉ Corresponding author: Assoc. Prof. Mihaela Ivanova, PhD, Department of Milk and Dairy Product, Technological Faculty, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 26, Maritza Blvd., 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria, E-mail: mihaela_18bg@abv.bg Article history: Received 14 November 2022 Reviewed 15 December 2022 Accepted 11 February 2023 Available on-line 17 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.30721/fsab2023.v6.i1.240 © 2023 The Authors. UFT Academic publishing house, Plovdiv Ivanova et al., 2023 Effect of chilled curd on Kashkaval quality Page 47 Research Article Comparative study of quality characteristics of Kashkaval cheese from fresh and chilled curd Mihaela Ivanova 1✉ , Tzvetelin Dessev 2,3 , Kolyo Dinkov 4 , Milena Dimitrova-Dicheva 1 , Nikolay Menkov 4 , Ekaterina Bogdanova 5 1 Department of Milk and Dairy products, Technological Faculty, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria 2 Department of Cereal and Bakery Products, Technological Faculty, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria 3 Food and Health Department, Nofima, As, Norway 4 Department of Process Engineering, Technical Faculty, University of Food Technologies, Plovdiv, Bulgaria 5 Department of Animal-Derived Food Technology, Voronezh, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies, Voronezh, Russian Federation Abstract The influence of chilled curd on Kashkaval cheese microbiological, functional, textural and sensorial characteristics was studied. It was found that salting the curd in a hot solution influenced to a greater degree the microflora reduction from the starter culture in Kashkaval cheese obtained from fresh curd. In terms of species composition, Streptococcus ssp. had a higher survival rate compared to Lactobacillus ssp. During maturation, this trend changed and the number of Lactobacillus ssp. increased, while that of Streptococcus ssp. remained constant and even slightly decreased in both studied samples. Melting and textural characteristics of the two studied cheese samples did not differ significantly at the end of the maturation process. The overall scores of the sensory profile were higher in the cheese obtained from fresh curd but no statistical differences (p>0.05) between separate sensory indices were established. The obtained results indicated that "Cagliata" can be successfully used as an alternative raw material for fresh curd in the production of Kashkaval cheese. Keywords chilled curd, Kashkaval cheese, cagliata cheese, pasta filata cheese, texture