295. The problem of bacteriophage in cheese making: Part I. Observations and investigations on slow acid production

Abstract

That bacteriophage is the cause of much loss to the cheese-making industry of New Zealand has been shown by Whitehead(1). In New Zealand in recent years, cheese has been made almost entirely from flash-pasteurized milk with the aid of starters prepared from single-strain cultures of lactic acid streptococci (Str. cremoris). The use of such starters has been accompanied by the occasional failure of the bulk starter to clot, or, if clotted, by failure to produce the required amount of acid in the cheese vat—the latter condition being described by Whitehead as ‘pack up’. Whitehead has traced the cause of sudden failure to air-borne infection of the bulk starter by specific bacteriophage (2), the most probable source of infection being the spray from whey separators. When adequate protection from phage contamination was provided slowness in cheese making disappeared.