In recent years microfiltration (MF) technology has gained prominence in dairy industry due to its ability to separate virtually every major component in milk without causing major damages to its properties. Current shelf-stable concentrated dairy products often have brown off-colors and ?cooked? off-flavors due to heat-induced Maillard browning and whey protein denaturation that occur during sterilization.

MF was used in this study to develop a novel concentrated milk product depleted of most of its lactose (to limit Maillard browning) and whey proteins. Acidified skim milk was concentrated to 8x microfiltration concentration factor and then diluted 1:1 with distilled water and sterilized in cans to produce a microfiltered milk concentrate (MMC).

The MMC was characterized by its chemical composition, color, apparent viscosity, flow behavior, and storage potential. Furthermore, these characteristics of the MMC were compared with a concentrated dairy product, commercial evaporated milk (CEM).

The % (w/w) composition of the MMC was found to be 20.6% total solids, 13.4% true protein, 12.0% casein, 0.6% fat, 1.5% ash, 1.8% lactose and 0.7% whey proteins. It was comparable to CEM in total solids, greater in true protein, casein, and fat, and lower in ash, lactose and whey proteins. The MMC retained much more of the white color of HTST-pasteurized milk than the CEM. The apparent viscosity (~9.5 cP at 30?C) of the MMC was much greater than that of the CEM and the MMC was seen to be more pseudoplastic in nature (n < 1) than the CEM. The changes during 12-month storage were comparable between the CEM and MMC samples.