Infusion pasteurization of whole milk and skim milk: Influence on viscosity and particle size

Summary

Infusion pasteurization was performed on both whole milk and skim milk and at different temperatures in the range 72°C-120°C. The skim milk was prepared at a commercial dairy and had been heated to approx. 60°C during the separation process. The whole milk was skimmed by centrifugation prior to the analyses. In the analyses, the infusion pasteurized samples were compared to a standard low pasteurization on the same batches of milk and samples of the raw milks. Particle sizes were analyzed using dynamic light scattering, and the viscosity of the samples were measured with a capillary viscometer.
The viscosity measurements showed no significant changes in viscosity after infusion pasteurization of skim milk, nor did the particle sizes change. On the other hand, when whole milk was infusion pasteurized an increase in viscosity of the skim milk fraction was seen as treatment temperature increased, and an increase in the z-average diameter of particles and broadening of the size distributions was observed. These observations were quite surprising and might be the result of influence of several different processes during and after infusion pasteurization.