Engineering Commons^™

Predicting The Cutting Time Of Cottage Cheese Using Backscatter Measurements, Czarena L. Crofcheck, Frederick A. Payne, Sue E. Nokes

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

An automated system for monitoring culture growth and determining coagulum cutting time is needed for cottage cheese manufacturing. A light backscatter measurement system was designed and installed in a local cottage cheese manufacturing plant. A cutting time prediction algorithm was developed using parameters generated from the backscatter profile. The cutting time prediction algorithm, T_cut = T_max + β₂ S, used two time-based parameters generated from the backscatter profile (T_max and S) and one operator selected parameter, β₂, to predict the coagulum cutting time, Tcut. The standard error of prediction for the algorithm was 6.4 …