A spreadsheet for calculation of ingredients for standardization of requeijão cremoso

Abstract

The standardization of requeijão cheese quality characteristics is a processing stage which is directly influenced by the chemical composition of the raw material. Fat and water concentrations are the main factors that cause variation in quality properties of the requeijão and, when not thoroughly controlled, may cause a lack in standardization of the food. Calculations of ingredients for effective standardization must be made in relation to the final product through of iterative calculations, which makes the manual process unfeasible. Thus, the objective of the present study was to develop a spreadsheet for ingredient calculation, with restrictions being the different concentrations of fat and water in order to standardize the final products. The spreadsheet was developed using the Excel 2007® Solver function, with just four input data: quantity of mass, water and fat content of the mass and fat content of the cream. The optimal solution was that which maximizes the amount of final product while meeting the stipulated constraints of fat and water. Results obtained with the spreadsheet were validated by processing the requeijão cheeses and comparison of the theoretical and practical parameters using the t-test. There was no significant difference between fat and water contents (p>0.10) estimated and verified in practice. Therefore, the use of the spreadsheet proved to be efficient for standardization of requeijão formulations.