You can add probiotic strains as Lactobacillus acidophillus or L.plantarum to the brine

@Uttara Ramasamy thanks for the suggestion, but in the brine already there is lactic acid

@Ahmed Korany, thanks for your suggestion, I think I will try with Lb plantarum

There are a number of commercial systems that are available. Try doing a Google search on "brine disinfection". You may want to check with people in processed meat and smoked seafood industries which have been using them to reduce the brine serving as a source of Listeria

UV treatment been used experimentally with a 4 or 5 log reduction.

First of all, pasteurization on milk (even though it's low heat past.) is needed. Then, post-contamination must be prevented. After that, you can increase salt concentration simply.

!! There are also some special culters i.e. Lb.helveticus. You can try this strain.

Pasteurization kills staphilococci. So, you can heat the brine at 75 degree C for 5 min and then cool it.

Pass the brine through a Microfiltration unit with membrane pore size 0.8 μm

You can use bacteriocin producing strains of lactic acid bacteria. Especially, Nisin has great importance in reducing the wide range of bacteria. Moreover, if you have any opportunity you can also try gamma-radiation to reduce the number of staphylococci.

You can use any LAB bakteriocine (enterosine) with antistafilococci activity, or probiotic LAB - produsent of bakteriocine (enterosine) with antistafilococci activity.

I would use lytic polyvalent staphylococcal bacteriophages.

What is salt concentration that you use in brine?

You can firstly acidified the brine solution to pH 4.5-5.0 and then pasteurize it. Or you can pasteurize the brine and then use whether Lactococcus lactis subsp lactis or lactobacillus plantarum, these two species can relatively tolerate the salt. You know that salt favorites the growth of Staphylococci and inhibits a many species of lactic acid bacteria.

Also, you can add some concentrations of caprylic as fatty acid in brine after the pasteurization, this step will relatively inhibits the staphylococci. You can use the concentration which don’t give any abnormal flavors to cheese

A method to reduce the presence and the growth of staphylococci in brine for mozzarella cheese, because during the shelf life these bacteria alter mozzarella with their intense proteolytic activity, as follows: (1) use pasteurized/UHT milk as material for cheese production, because staphylococci was killed by pasteurization/sterilization conducted by those milk (2) all utilities used in cheese processing/production must be sterilized to avoid contamination by staphylococci

A method to reduce the presence and the growth of staphylococci in brine for mozzarella cheese, because during the shelf life these bacteria alter mozzarella with their intense proteolytic activity, as follows: (1) use pasteurized/UHT milk as material for cheese production, because staphylococci was killed by pasteurization/sterilization conducted by those milk (2) all utilities used in cheese processing/production must be sterilized to avoid contamination by staphylococci

Hello Elena,

Nisin has been proven to be effective against Staph. as Ismail said earlier. Furthermore Nisin (and its commercialy available products) is the only approved pure compound (bacteriocin) in most of the world for use in specific cheeses. If you are interested in a commercialy available solution you should check whether Nisin containing antimicrobial products are aproved for use in Mozarella (most probably they are). Otherwise, I believe that as many colleagues mentioned before, traditional heating (pasteurizing) of milk and addition of anitmicrobial cultures can significantly improve the microbiological quality of your cheese. In particular the antimicrobial cultures of lactic acid bacteria or fermentates of them are an excellent choice since they combine 2 or more different antimicrobial compounds and the effectiveness of this solution lies in the fact that there are often synergistic effects among these different antimicrobial compounds which in essence multiply their effectiveness.

I hope this helps and good luck.

All the best

Panos

it's depoend on what you would like to use it after.... f.ex. Lysostaphin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysostaphin)

Neutral electrolysed or ozonated water is recently applied to reduce pathogens in water and on stainless steel and glass surfaces

Hello

Actually due to manufacturing technique the brine solution almost 5 or 10% and the temperature 5 - 7C so, so easy to heat treatment of the brine then cooling the staphylococci could not be able to grow in such solution

all best

Shenana

Pasteurisation has been suggested, but you would have to ensure that the heat treatment did not alter the other nutrients in the ingredients used.

Bacteriophage treatment was suggested, but you would have to isolate at least six phage strains (mutants obtained from the original phage) to counteract any naturally-occurring staphylococcal strains resistant to the original phage, i.e., isolate a Staph strain resistant to the original phage; isolate a mutant of the original phage capable of killing the resistant Staph mutant; carry out this repetitive process until at least six mutant phage variants have been isolated.

You could try membrane or Seitz filtration of the brine.

I assume that your brine is at least 15% salt. It is unlikely that staphs would grow at this concentration of salt. Pasteurise the brine is an obvious way. If you do not have a pasteuriser, heat treat at 65 C for at least 30 min.

It depends on the source of Staph. It can be from Staph mastitis in the cows or Buffalo that provide the milk. It is important that you culture milk to be used for Mozarella for Staph or monitor the herds. the 3 M plates are a god screening tool.

If the Staph is in the water from which brine is used, you need to change to a source of potable water. I know people do not like to use chlorinated water for cheese making, but natural water sources should be micro filtered or otherwise heat purified. the third source of Staph is people . Basic hygiene in handling cheese should be observed. This includes regular hand washing and the use of masks to prevent breathing over the brine and cheeses. Cleaning and sterilizing cheese making equipment between batches is also essential.

A method to reduce the presence and the growth of staphylococci in brine for mozzarella cheese, because during the shelf life these bacteria alter mozzarella with their intense proteolytic activity, as follows: (1) use pasteurized/UHT milk as material for cheese production, because staphylococci was killed by pasteurization/sterilization conducted by those milk (2) all utilities used in cheese processing/production must be sterilized to avoid contamination by staphylococci

(3) As mentioned above by Mr Cogan that pasteurization or heat treatment of the brine

before using in cheese production

Hello,

I read that UV radiation is very efficient.

Best regards.

I do not consider the treatment of brine as a relevant solution because the product could be modified (for example if raw milk is used) or not accepted for the consumers. It is necessary to determine the source of contamination in order to implement control measures really suited to the situation. (for example prevention of mastitis by staphylococci).

Try adding chlorhexidine.

A method to reduce the presence and the growth of staphylococci in brine for mozzarella cheese, because during the shelf life these bacteria alter mozzarella with their intense proteolytic activity. Is as follows: (1) as a mentioned before and (2) the brine containing staphylococci wiill be pasteurized in order to the bacteria wiil be killed by pasteurization

The most effective way is the microfiltration (MF) of cheese brine.

Using this membrane technology we can remove some 99,5-99,95% of bacteria and close to 100% of spores. MF is done on cold cheese brine, does not require any temperature increase or chemical additives. What more, the MF, especially when using ceramic memrbanes, very little changes the constitution of the brine and does not decrease the brine's buffer properties, which is crucial for further cheese ripening process.

MF equipment is used continually. It is simply a part of cheese brining technology assuring high bacteriological quality of the brine. I personally design and build such an equipment and have numerous references working for more than 10 years already.

Microfiltration has no effect on enterotoxins eventually present in milk

That is right but high temperature pasteurisation, pH correction and gamma-radiation - as recommended by the other - have no effect on enterotoxins either.

The question referred to 'a method to reduce the presence and the growth of staphylococci in brine' and MF is an effective tool to complete this task.

Level of enterotoxins shall be examined in case TBC of Staphylococci exceeds 10^5 cfu/ml. In case of lower TBC level of enterotoxins shall not cause any food poisoning.