Tapioca maltodextrin in soft cheese making
What it found
In lab tests, adding tapioca maltodextrin to milk for soft cheese made the milk clot faster and the cheese hold more water, softer and creamier.
A taste panel preferred cheese with 1.1% tapioca maltodextrin.
What they found
Studies in people
Taste panel results
The taste panel found that cheese with 1.1% tapioca maltodextrin was creamier and smoother in the mouth. More than that gave a starchy taste and astringent feeling.
Other findings
Faster clotting
Adding tapioca maltodextrin to milk made the rennet flocculation time and rennet clotting time shorter. Higher amounts led to shorter times.
More moisture
Cheeses with more tapioca maltodextrin held more water and had higher moisture content.
Softer texture
The cheese with 1.1% tapioca maltodextrin was plastic and spreadable, while the skimmed milk cheese was too hard and the ultrafiltered cheese was hard but spreadable.
pH changes
The pH of the cheeses tended to decrease as tapioca maltodextrin increased, but the difference was not significant.
What the authors conclude
- They say that adding tapioca maltodextrin to natural low fat cheese may improve texture and acceptability compared to low fat control cheeses without maltodextrin.
- They recommend a level of 1.1% tapioca maltodextrin of the mixture weight.
- They note that further increase led to a starchy taste and astringent aftertaste.
How it was done
Low fat cheeses often have poor body and flavour, so the authors wanted to see if tapioca maltodextrin could give a non-fat cheese the properties of a full-fat one.
They made soft unripened cheese from skimmed milk and from ultrafiltered skimmed milk, adding tapioca maltodextrin at levels from 0.3% to 1.3% of the retentate weight. They measured clotting times, pH, moisture, texture, and had a 12-person panel taste the cheeses.
What it can’t tell you
- This study was done in a lab with small batches of cheese, not in people eating it as part of their diet.
- It does not show what long-term health effects, if any, eating this cheese would have.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- ITMO University, Russia
The paper
- Title
- Tapioca maltodextrin in the production of soft unripened cheese
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Iakovchenko NV, Arseneva TP (2016). Tapioca maltodextrin in the production of soft unripened cheese. Acta scientiarum polonorum. Technologia alimentaria. doi:10.17306/J.AFS.2016.1.5Free full textPubMed 28071038DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error