( Springer-Verlag 1997

Z Lebensm Unters Forsch A (1997) 204: 259264

OR I G I N A L P AP E R

Harald Rohm Doris Jaros

Colour of hard cheese

2. Factors of influence and relation to compositional parameters

Received: 15 July 1996

Abstract Colour properties of hard cheeses, which included mature Vorarlberger Bergkase (n"141) as well
as a set of Emmental cheeses monitored periodically
during ripening, were evaluated by tristimulus reflectance measurements. After transformation of the
tristimulus primaries into the recently proposed onedimensional Yellowness index, colour measures were
related to selected compositional parameters by multivariate statistical methods. Both multiple regression
and principal component regression showed that
cheese body colour is mainly affected by qualitative
properties of the fat phase which, in turn, are heavily
influenced by seasonal deviations. Additional minor
sources of variation include the total solids content as
well as measures reflecting changes induced by cheese
maturation.
Key words Hard cheese Physical properties
Colour Composition

Introduction
It is established, although depending on the type of
food [1, 2], that appearance attributes comprising optical properties, physical form and presentation mode
[3] significantly contribute to sensory responses and
play an important role in the anticipation phase of
selection and consumption in food materials [4]. Evidently, the ability to control appearance properties
and, in particular, food colour increases heavily with
the degree of processing. The colour of agricultural
products that are commercially distributed in a raw
and unprocessed state or produced without additives
is much more variable than that of processed foods
a fact which is plain to the consumer.
H. Rohm ( ) D. Jaros
Institut fur Milchforschung und Bakteriologie der Universitat fur
Bodenkultur, Gregor Mendel Strasse 33, A-1180 Wien, Austria

As part of the standard technology of production of

semi-hard and soft cheese varieties from pasteurized
milk, annatto or b-carotene is added to the cheese milk
in order to correct colour differences attributable to,
for example, seasonal variations. Furthermore, additives are used to adjust colour properties of the resulting cheeses according to region (e.g. Cheddar cheese).
However, in the case of traditional hard cheeses made
from raw milk, such as Emmental and Gruye`re, the use
of additives is limited to the clotting enzyme.
It has been shown in a previous paper [5] that colour
properties of the Emmental cheese body change significantly during ripening. The aim of the present study
was to focus on seasonal and technological effects on
hard-cheese body colour as expressed by the onedimensional Yellowness index (i) proposed recently
[5] and to relate colour properties to compositional
parameters.

Materials and methods

Cheese samples. Emmental cheeses were produced on a standard
scale (8000-l vats) at the Bundesanstalt fur Alpenlandische Milchwirtschaft, Rotholz, Austria. In the winter feeding period (February to
March), four sets of wheel-shaped cheeses were made within 4 weeks.
Within each set, different amounts of water (0%, 10% and 20%)
were added to the curd/whey mixture subsequent to curd cutting.
Using 10% water addition, fourfold repeated productions were also
performed in the spring (middle of May) and in the summer feeding
period (end of June). Up to an age of 16 weeks, blocks of
20 cm]20 cm]cheese height were cut from the approximately
80-kg Emmental wheels at predetermined intervals of 23 weeks.
A total of 141 samples of mature (56 months) Vorarlberger
Bergkase, a regional Austrian hard-cheese variety, were randomly
collected from two marketing cooperatives during a period of
1 year.
Colour measurement. After storing cheese samples at 15$0.2 C
overnight and preparing cheese slices (height"30 mm), tristimulus
reflectance measurements (each one made eight times) were carried
out with a MicroColor test station operating in the X, Y, Z mode
(Dr. Lange, Berlin, Germany; D65 Xenon flash lamp, 10 field size).

260
The system was calibrated with an appropriate BaSO4-whiteness
standard.
Chemical analyses. Fat and dry matter content were determined
butyrometrically and by the oven method, respectively [6, 7]. Total
nitrogen (N), water-soluble N (filtrate of 10% aqueous cheese
homogenate), 12% trichloracetic-acid-soluble N and 5% phosphotungstic-acid-soluble N were determined by the Kjeldahl
method [8, 9]; ammonia content was measured enzymatically [10].
Total ash and chloride contents were measured gravimetrically, pH
was determined potentiometrically [11, 12], selected organic acids
(acetate, propionate and lactate) by HPLC [13], and the iodine
value by the WIJS method [14]. Free fatty acids were determined by
a titration method [15], and b-carotene content photometrically to
440 nm after fat extraction, saponification and resolving the unsaponifiable matter in n-hexane [16].
Sensory comparisons. Nine pairs of selected cheese samples,
50 mm]70 mm]20 mm in size and placed on white porcelain
plates, were presented to panel of six people. On three occasions the
panellists were asked to assess differences within the pairs of cheeses
(#/! decision).
Data evaluation. Using the colour primaries, the dimensionless
Yellowness index, i was calculated according to DIN [17]. Appropriate procedures of a commercial software package were used for
statistical evaluation [18].

Results and discussion

Variations in Emmental body colour
Figure 1 depicts the effects of production time and
maturation on the i value of the Emmental cheese
body. This measure can be derived from dimensionless tristimulus primaries X, and Z by i"100
[(1.301X!1.149 Z)/ ] [17] and, as compared to the
usually applied CIELAB-coordinates, has the advant-

age of being one dimensional. It has been shown by

using colour primaries of Emmental cheese produced
in spring [5] that i is significantly interrelated to both
* (negative slope) as well as with a* and b* (positive
slope). Within each particular group of cheeses, i
increases significantly during maturation, indicating
a decrease in lightness (*) and an increase on both
reddish (#a*) and yellowish (#b*) axes. These changes have also been interpreted in terms of dominant
wavelength, j (nm), and saturation, p[!], which
$
showed a shift towards higher values [5].
It is also evident from Fig. 1 that, apart from maturation effects, the production period heavily influences
Emmental body colour. Average i was found to be
44.2$0.30, 48.0$0.50 and 51.0$0.87 for 1-week-old
cheeses produced in winter, spring and summer,
respectively, and corresponding mature Emmentals
(16 weeks) showed values of 46.6$0.34 (winter),
51.3$0.40 (spring) and 54.3$0.72 (summer). Threeway ANOVA showed that production time and maturation effects were significant (P(0.01), whereas the
reproducibility of the cheese-making process was
confirmed by insignificant F-values for repeated production.
Water addition either to raw milk or to the
curd/whey mixture after curd cutting is a wellestablished technique to control and influence the
intensity of propionic acid fermentation during
Emmental maturation [19, 20]. In addition to effects on secondary fermentation and proteolysis, this
technology results in a signficant modification of
physical properties. Whereas mechanical properties,
i.e. apparent stress and strain at fracture, increase
significantly with increasing water addition (range:
020%) [21], an inverse effect on cheese body colour was observed. During maturation, the i value
of Emmental produced without water addition shifted
from 45.8 (1 week) to 49.0 (16 weeks) (Table 1). Addition of 20% water resulted in a significantly (P(0.05)
less intense cheese body colour, with i increasing
from 42.6 for young Emmental to 44.9 for mature
Emmental.

Table 1 Effects of water addition during manufacture on the Yellowness index of Emmental cheese
Cheese
age (days)
7
28
70
112
Fig. 1 Colour of Emmental cheese (mean values$standard deviations; n"4) produced in winter (d), spring (j) and summer (m) as
a function of maturation. Mean values with the same letter do not
differ significantly (P(0.01)

Yellowness index1
0%2

10%

20%

45.8$0.87!
46.4$0.46!
48.2$0.18!
49.0$0.29!

44.3$0.29"
44.6$0.20"
46.2$0.35"
46.6$0.34"

42.6$0.54#
43.6$0.28#
44.5$0.24#
44.9$0.26#

1 Mean values within each line followed by common superscripts do

not differ significantly (P(0.05)
2 Amount of water added to the curd/whey mixture

261

Colour of Vorarlberger Bergkase

Vorarlberger Bergkase is a surface-ripened hard cheese
variety made from raw milk, which shows typical characteristics similar to those of Swiss Gruye`re [22]. Traditionally, Bergkase is produced on remote alps during
the summer and, in order to ensure availability
throughout the whole year, in valley plants in the
autumn, winter and spring. Figure 2 depicts the i
values of mature (56 months) Vorarlberger Bergkase,
as affected by production time. Despite a certain
amount of variability, the mean i of summer cheeses
(n"60) produced between May and September
(54.3$4.26) was found to be significantly (P(0.01)
higher than the i value of Bergkase manufactured
during the rest of the year (48.1$4.75). Iodine values
of extracted cheese fat, which generally ranged from
29.6 to 48.0, showed a similar seasonal trend, with
mean values of 41.3$1.82 (summer cheeses) and
33.5$2.33 (winter cheeses) (P(0.01).
Relationship between colour and chemical
composition

Using the Emmental data set, regressions between

chemical variables and i were calculated by applying
the REG/RSQUARE procedure of the software package [18]. The corresponding output consists of groups
of linear combinations of i"1n regressors sorted
by the magnitude of the coefficients of determination
(r2). Regarding one-parameter models, a number of
regressors with significant r2 values were found. These
included the iodine value (IV; r2"0.53) as well as
secondary proteolysis estimates, e.g. i versus watersoluble (WS-N, r2"0.25). Two-parameter models
with high r2 values generally comprised regressor combinations of IV and proteolysis measures (r2+0.75).
Addition of a third independent variable resulted in
combinations of IV, proteolysis measures and acidityrelated estimates such as pH, acetic, propionic and
lactic acid which, in turn, were found to be heavily
interrelated (r2'0.89). For example, Fig. 3 shows partial regression plots for the three-parameter model
i"a#b IV#b WS-N#b pH (r2"0.88, P(
1
2
3
0.001) with b , b and b being 0.90$0.031, 0.77$
1 2
3
0.046 and !11.9$1.24, respectively. Addition of any
fourth parameter to the model did not improve the
significance of r2 as estimated by the extra sum of
squares principle [24].

In order to evaluate the influence of compositional

parameters on cheese body colour the data sets were
subjected to multivariate analyses. Gross composition
parameters of Emmental cheeses that were manufactured under reproducible conditions with variable
amounts of added water and a variable production
time showed comparable values with low standard
deviations. In the case of mature Emmentals (n"20),
dry matter, fat content, total nitrogen and fat in dry
matter were found to be 648$3.0 g/kg, 304$4.2 g/kg,
47.9$0.80 g/kg and 46.9$0.69%, respectively. As
outlined previously [20, 23], neither water addition
technology nor seasonal variations had significant effects with respect to these properties.

Fig. 2 Effects of production time on the colour of Vorarlberger

Bergkase. Insert shows iodine value versus production time

Fig. 3 Partial regression residual plots relating the Yellowness index

of Emmental cheese to selected chemical variables. (S-N Watersoluble nitrogen). Numbers refer to numbers of observations

262
Table 2 Composition of
Vorarlberger Bergkase
(n"141). (FA Fat content,
DM dry matter, N total
nitrogen, S-N water-soluble
nitrogen, S-N 12%
trichloroacetic-acid-soluble
nitrogen, PS-N 5%
phosphotungstic-acid soluble
nitrogen, AMM ammonia, ASH
total ash content, C chloride
content, AC lactic acid,
ACE acetic acid, PROP
propionic acid, I iodine value,
FFA free fatty acids)

Variable

Arithmetic
mean

Standard
deviation

Minimum

Maximum

FAT (g/kg)
DM (g/kg)
TN (g/kg)
WS-N (%)
TS-N (%)
PS-N (%)
AMM (g/kg)
ASH (g/kg)
CL (g/kg)
pH
LACT (g/kg)
ACET (g/kg)
PROP (g/kg)
IV
FFA (mEq/kg)

357.3
664.2
41.63
27.43
20.88
10.02
1.388
39.81
9.921
5.707
8.333
1.506
0.562
36.83
6.33

11.7
9.7
1.58
5.18
5.19
3.21
0.406
3.65
1.949
0.116
1.899
0.721
0.619
4.47
1.89

315
638
37.3
11.4
5.8
2.4
0.61
31.3
5.61
5.40
0.03
0.33
0.02
29.6
3.7

390
684
48.5
40.5
33.5
18.2
2.62
51.6
15.6
6.06
11.86
6.62
2.57
48.0
13.8

Because of the much higher variability observed in

chemical measures of Vorarlberger Bergkase (Table 2)
principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to
simplify data structure. The transformation of an original set of i variables to a new set of i uncorrelated
variables by orthogonal rotation in i-space [25, 26]
results in Eigenvalues j of the principal components
*
(PCs) and in cumulative proportions of variance explained (Fig. 4). On the basis of the screen test and in
order to achieve variables communalities '0.7 [26],
six PCs explaining 83% of the total variance were selected
for subsequent VARIMAX rotation. It is evident from the
resulting set of component correlations (Table 3) that
each variable can be assigned to a certain component.
Original variables with high positive or negative loadings on PCs can be interpreted as an index of combined
or contrasting action of the original variables [27]. In
case of PC6, for example, high component correlations
were only observed for fat and dry matter content
which, in turn, showed low loadings on all other PCs.

After regressing i on component scores (PC1PC6)

of the cheeses by using the RSQUARE option [18],
we achieved a significant three-parameter model,
i.e. i"a#b PC2#b PC4#b PC6 (r2"0.62, b ,
1
2
3
1
b , b '0, P(0.001). In the case of more than one
2 3
variable assigned to a specific component indicating
some colinearity, Daling and Tamura [28] suggested
that the relationship should be ascribed to the independent variable with the highest simple correlation
with the independent variable. This is true for lipolysis
(r"#0.466, P(0.001), IV (r"#0.660, P(0.001)
and the dry matter content (r"#0.192, P"0.022) in
the cases of PC2, PC4 and PC6, respectively. The plot
of standardized residuals, d , versus predicted i cal*
culated from the above model (Fig. 5) indicates that the
variability of d proved to be fairly uniform and inde*
pendent of the predicted i and the absence of outliers
(D d D(3).
*
Sensory implications

Fig. 4 Eigenvalues (d) of principal components and explained

variance (j)

CIELAB colour differences calculated by *E"

I[(**)2#(*a*)2#(*b*)2], with *, a* and b* obtained from tristimulus primaries [5], as well as differences in i of selected pairs of cheese samples are
outlined in Table 4. It is known from colour specifications in the technical industry that, in the range
of cheese colour coordinates, a *E value of +0.7
roughly corresponds to the sensory difference threshold
[29]. Depending on the magnitude of *E, visual inspection of cheese colour resulted in appropriate sensory
colour differences and confirmed the validity of these
threshold values.
In conclusion, from the results outlined here it is
evident that the qualitative milk fat composition, as
estimated by IV, can be regarded as the most important
descriptor of cheese body colour expressed in terms of
i. IV, which represents a direct measure of the double

263
Table 3 Component
correlations and communalities

Variable!

FAT (g/kg)
DM (g/kg)
TN (g/kg)
WS-N (%)
TS-N (%)
PS-N (%)
AMM (g/kg)
ASH (g/kg)
CL (g/kg)
pH
LACT (g/kg)
ACET (g/kg)
PROP (g/kg)
IV
FFA (mEq/kg)

Component correlations

Communality

PC1

PC2

PC3

PC4

PC5

PC6

!0.09
!0.31
!0.11
0.49
0.70
0.66
0.83
0.00
0.21
0.81
!0.15
0.34
!0.04
0.11
0.32

0.00
!0.20
0.04
0.12
0.11
!0.05
0.23
!0.22
!0.14
0.27
!0.90
0.71
0.86
0.08
0.66

!0.19
0.05
!0.05
0.04
0.25
0.33
0.18
0.88
0.83
!0.19
!0.01
!0.29
!0.32
0.28
0.05

!0.19
0.06
!0.10
0.69
0.28
0.21
0.22
0.08
0.24
0.04
!0.08
0.01
!0.02
0.87
0.44

!0.16
0.42
0.93
!0.18
!0.34
!0.36
!0.10
0.04
!0.14
0.14
0.16
0.16
0.01
!0.05
0.14

0.90
0.70
!0.01
!0.10
!0.26
!0.12
!0.11
!0.11
!0.05
!0.06
0.10
!0.19
0.03
!0.10
0.06

0.909
0.818
0.900
0.783
0.844
0.737
0.861
0.838
0.839
0.788
0.877
0.786
0.844
0.870
0.760

! Abbreviations, see Table 2

bonds in a particular mixture of triglycerides, was significantly related to the concentration of b-carotene
in cheese fat (r2"0.97; n"20) ranging from 1.4 lg/g
(IV"29.6) to 14.2 lg/g (IV"46.5) within the cheeses
analysed. Apart from this emerging variable of influence, cheese body colour was found to be affected
gradually by dry matter content as well as by estimates
reflecting maturation-induced changes.
Acknowledgements The study has been supported by part of research grants L689 and AM40/92, Austrian Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry, and P9455, Austrian Science Foundation. Thanks are
due to Dr. W. Ginzinger and Dr. E. Tschager for their cooperation.

References
Fig. 5 Standardized residuals obtained from principal component
regression as a function of estimated cheese colour

Table 4 Differences between selected Emmental cheese samples.

(DE CIELAB colour difference, Di Yellowness index difference, DS
significance level of perceived difference)
Sample sets

*E

*i

*S

Maturation
10 vs 13 wks (10% water)
10 vs 16 wks (10% water)
13 vs 16 wks (10% water)

0.46
1.9
0.93

0.58
0.52
0.21

n.s.
(0.01
n.s.

Water addition
0 vs 20% (10 weeks)
0 vs 20% (16 weeks)
10 vs 20% (10 weeks)
10 vs 20% (16 weeks)

2.2
2.1
0.69
1.3

3.7
4.1
0.81
1.3

(0.01
(0.01
n.s.
(0.01

Season of production
Winter vs spring (16 weeks)
Spring vs summer (16 weeks)

3.8
2.9

4.4
3.1

(0.01
(0.01

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