Tracking Amazonian cheese microbial diversity: Development of an original, sustainable, and robust starter by freeze...

Marajó cheese made with raw buffalo milk in the Amazon region of Brazil can be considered a good source of wild lactic acid bacteria strains with unexplored and promising characteristics. The aim of this study was to develop a potential probiotic starter culture for industrial applications using freeze drying and spray drying. A decrease in the survival rates of freeze-dried samples compared with spray-dried samples was noted. The spray-dried cultures remained approximately 10⁹ cfu·g^-1, whereas the freeze-dried samples showed 10⁷ cfu·g^-1 after 60 d of storage at 4°C. All of the spray-dried samples showed a greater ability to decrease the pH in 10% skim milk over 24 h compared with the freeze-dried samples. The spray-dried samples showed a greater resistance to acidic conditions and to the presence of bile salts. In addition, under heat stress conditions, reduction was under 2 log cycles in all samples. Although the survival rate was similar among the evaluated samples after drying, the technological performance for skim milk showed some differences. This study may direct further investigations into how to preserve lactic acid bacteria probiotics to produce spray-dried starters that have a high number of viable cells that can then be used for industrial applications in a cost-effective way.