Abstract
The water content of dairy products ranges from ~2.5 to ~94 % (w/w) (Table 7.1) and is the principal component, by weight, in most dairy products, including milk, cream, ice cream, yogurt and most cheeses. The moisture content of foods (or more correctly their water activity, see Sect. 7.3), together with temperature and pH, are of great importance to food technology. As described in Sect. 7.8, water plays an extremely important role even in relatively low-moisture products such as butter (~16 % moisture) or dehydrated milk powders (~2.5 to 4 % moisture). Water, the most important diluent in foodstuffs, has an important influence on the physical, chemical and microbiological changes which occur in dairy products, and is an important plasticizer of non-fat milk solids.
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References
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Suggested Reading
Fennema, O.R., ed. (1985). Food Chemistry, 2nd edn., Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York.
Rockland, L.B. and Beuchat, L.R., eds. (1987). Water Activity: Theory and Applications to Food, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York.
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Simatos, D., Champion, D., Lorient, D., Loupiac, and Roudaut, G. (2009). Water in dairy products, in, Advanced Dairy Chemisry, volume 3, Lactose, Water, Salts and Minor Constituents 3rd edition, P.L.H. McSweeney and P.F. Fox, eds, Springer, New York. pp 467–526.
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Fox, P.F., Uniacke-Lowe, T., McSweeney, P.L.H., O’Mahony, J.A. (2015). Water in Milk and Dairy Products. In: Dairy Chemistry and Biochemistry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14892-2_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14892-2_7
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