Milk was collected from three spring-calving herds,
on different daily
herbage allowances (DHA) of perennial rye-grass (16, 20 or
24 kg dry matter (DM)/cow for a 17 week period. On
five occasions, at weekly intervals in the middle
of the period, the three different milks were converted
into low-moisture part-skim
Mozzarella cheese. Increasing the DHA resulted in significant
increases in the concentrations of protein in the cheesemilk
(P<0·05) and cheese whey
(P<0·02). The moisture-adjusted cheese
yield increased significantly (P<0·01) on
raising the DHA from 16 to 24 kg grass DM/cow. DHA had no
significant effects on any of the
gross compositional values of the cheese (although moisture
and fat-in-DM levels
tended to decrease and increase respectively with increasing
DHA). The hardness of
the uncooked cheese and functionality of cooked cheese
(i.e. melt time, flowability,
stretch and viscosity) were not significantly influenced by
DHA over the 115 d ripening period at 4°C.