Titration is an old method used for the determination of acidic and basic groups of a molecule. Several metabolic end-products in cheese are compounds with acidic or basic groups, e.g. propionic, acetic and lactic acids, amino acids, amines and ammonia. A number of colorimetric and fluorometric methods have been used to study proteolysis in cheese; some are time-consuming with several steps, and certain of the reagents are hazardous.

We have used acid-base titration for analysis of the products of proteolysis in Swiss-type cheese. The titration system was that originally developed for use in silage analysis (Moisio & Heikonen, 1989) and applied to cheese it has proved to be useful, easy and rapid with an accuracy similar to that achieved by colorimetry.