Donkey Milk Powder Production and Properties Compared to Other Milk Powders Giovanni Di Renzo, Giuseppe Altieri, Francesco Genovese
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Donkey milk powder production and properties compared to other milk powders Giovanni Di Renzo, Giuseppe Altieri, Francesco Genovese To cite this version: Giovanni Di Renzo, Giuseppe Altieri, Francesco Genovese. Donkey milk powder production and properties compared to other milk powders. Dairy Science & Technology, EDP sciences/Springer, 2013, 93 (4), pp.551-564. 10.1007/s13594-013-0108-7. hal-01201420 HAL Id: hal-01201420 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01201420 Submitted on 17 Sep 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Dairy Sci. & Technol. (2013) 93:551–564 DOI 10.1007/s13594-013-0108-7 NOTE Donkey milk powder production and properties compared to other milk powders Giovanni Carlo Di Renzo & Giuseppe Altieri & Francesco Genovese Received: 14 September 2012 /Revised: 1 January 2013 /Accepted: 7 January 2013 / Published online: 29 January 2013 # INRA and Springer-Verlag France 2013 Abstract In order to adapt the seasonal production of donkey milk to constant market demand, this study was aimed to define the project parameters of a pilot spray dryer for producing soluble milk powder from donkey milk concentrate. The concentrate (23% mean dry matter (wb)) was spray-dried using three different inlet air temperatures (120–150–185 °C). Both cow and goat milk were used as reference in the trials, and ascorbic acid was used as a chemical marker to evaluate thermal damage to the powder. The thermal damage index (IDT) and insolubility index (IINS) were used to assess the quality of the powders produced. Prediction models were developed for each kind of milk to correlate spray-drying operating temperatures to the IINS and IDT. The results of experimental trials were used to determine optimal processing temperatures (both inlet and outlet air temperature) in order to obtain an “extra-grade” milk powder from donkey milk concentrate (the maximum allowed inlet air temperature that resulted was 173.5 °C). Keywords Spray-drying . Donkey milk . Powder. Thermal damage . Insolubility index 1 Introduction In recent years, the demand for replacement milks has increased considerably, because of intolerances and allergies to cow milk (Hill and Hosking 1996;Iaconoetal.1992; Monti et al. 2007). This applies not only to goat and mare milks, but also especially to donkey milk, whose composition is very close to that of human milk (Hill and Hosking 1996; Monti et al. 2007; Salimei et al. 2004). G. C. Di Renzo (*) : G. Altieri : F. Genovese Scuola di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali, Alimentari e Ambientali, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Viale dell’Ateneo Lucano 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy e-mail: [email protected] 552 G.C. Di Renzo et al. Donkey milk production, with particular reference to southern Italy, is mostly performed in small livestock farms with no more than 60 animals. The average milk production of each farm ranges between 12 and 72 kg.day−1 considering the donkey- specific milk production amount of 0.3–1.2 kg.day−1 (depending on the season and the physiological status). At present, there are 12 farms in southern Italy, and they are distributed over a wide area, with distances between farms of 80–300 km, but the interest toward this livestock activity has been growing in the latest years. Moreover, donkey livestock is just one of the farm activities, but it is very important because of the possibility for donkeys to pasture on barren marginal ground and to improve the farmer’s income. Indeed, given that the fresh pasteurized milk market price ranges between 12.00 €.L−1 and 16.00 €.L−1, the milk is generally sold as fresh pasteurized milk, and only a limited amount, in relation to the seasonal variation in market demand, is set aside for powder production. Therefore, in southern Italy, such replacement milks currently account for a marginal line of business, with small farms dispersed over extensive rural areas. Further, as for mares and donkeys, milk production depends on calving seasonality; herd productivity, in terms of milk yield, does not make it viable to build industrial plants to bottle pasteurized raw milk or UHT: this is due to the small quantity of milk produced against the requirements of an industrial milk plant (Doreau and Boulot 1989). As the typical composition of milk makes it very perishable, it has to be processed into a more stable product. Among the several technologies available, spray-drying offers many benefits (Daemen 1981; Rysstad and Kolstad 2006; Schuck 2002). Drying extends milk shelf life (whole milk powder has a maximum shelf life of about 6 months) and reduces weight, volume and the consequent cost of transporting and storing the product (Daemen 1981; Rysstad and Kolstad 2006). As regards the process involved, the milk is first concentrated by evaporation and then dried in a drying chamber. The concentrated milk is atomized through a nozzle into droplets that are co-current dried with a flow of hot air. During the first stage of the drying process (i.e. constant rate drying), excess water is evaporated; in the final stage (i.e. falling rate drying), the water bound in the solid droplets is also finally evaporated (Chen and Lin 2005). Product quality is dramatically affected by the thermal level of the final drying stage: if contact time between milk droplets and hot air is prolonged, the powder may contain traces of charred particles that lower its quality (Birchal et al. 2004; Chen and Lin 2005; Pérez-Correa and Farías 1995). The success of a new spray-drying product is related to determination of the drying kinetics and degradation kinetics for heat-sensitive constituents (Birchal et al. 2004;De Ritter 1976; Indyk et al. 1996; Wijlhuizen et al. 1979). As the residence time of milk droplets in the spray-drying chamber is very short (usually no more than 30 s), the process requires proper determination of both drying kinetics and degradation reactions (Oakley 2004; Piatkowski and Zbicinski 2007; Straatsma et al. 1999a, b; Verdurmen et al. 2002, 2005). The aim of this paper is to define the operating parameters and their effects on powder quality of a drying process/plant that should have the following characteristics: simple and easy to manage, possible to use on livestock farms in order to avoid long transpor- tation, small in terms of size and production capacity, production capacity (in terms of raw milk) in the range of 50–100 L.day−1 and low cost, in order to permit the single producer to purchase the plant. Therefore, experimental trials have been carried out using a Donkey milk powder production 553 pilot spray dryer for producing soluble donkey milk powder, using both cow and goat milk as reference. Quality indices (insolubility, thermal damage and protein denaturation) were used to evaluate the correct processing of milk, and a chemical marker (ascorbic acid) was used by the authors to evaluate overall thermal damage. 2 Materials and methods Milk samples were provided by local suppliers and were collected from 10 donkeys, 10 goats and 10 cows living in the same area; the mean physical and chemical values of the raw milk samples are reported in Table 1. After milking, the milk was collected in 20-dm3 containers, frozen and stored at −20 °C for 2 months until experimentation. Low-temperature concentration of milk was performed in a low-pressure evaporator pilot plant available in the laboratory. Evaporation was carried out at 55 °C and led to a concentrated milk temperature of 35 °C. Evaporation capacity was about 2.5 kg.h−1 and final dry matter content about 20%. Five repetitions of about 15 L of raw milk were carried out for cow milk, three repetitions for goat and donkey milk. The equipment used for spray-drying was a laboratory-scale FT80 spray dryer from Armfield Limited with a pressure atomizing nozzle. The spray tower was modified to allow the internal flow to be axisymmetric by using an internal cylindrical diaphragm that shapes an axisymmetric discharge duct: this was done to develop the full evaporative capacity of the machine and to standardise and increase the particles’ residence time. The main operating parameter ranges of the FT80 spray dryer are reported in Table 2. Spray-drying of the concentrated milk was performed in a one-stage spray dryer pilot plant using three inlet temperatures (120, 150, 185 °C). The feed flow rate of concentrate was set at 0.5 L.h−1, with dry matter in the range of 15–30%, according to the machine operating parameter range; the ambient air temperature was 25 °C and RH% about 40%; the other operating values used for the trials are listed in Table 2. Powder samples were analysed to evaluate both physical and chemical properties: thermal damage index (IDT); insolubility index (IINS); loss of ascorbic acid on dry basis; powder dry matter percent (wb) (ORS%); titratable acidity, as percentage of lactic acid content (OTA%); outlet discharge temperature (OT) and the RH% of discharged air (ORH%) were continuously recorded during the trials. The IDT was obtained through the assay of total soluble undenatured proteins (the Biuret method was applied to the filtered sample at iso-electric pH 4.8 which precipitates the denatured proteins) related to the overall protein content calculated using the persulfate digestion method (Koroleff 1983) as an alternative to the more time-consuming Kjeldahl.