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Kashar is a cooked-curd cheese and traditionally produced without using any starter cultures. Three different types of commercial starter cultures Choozit ™ MA 11 (MA), BT 01 (BT) and Feta A (Feta) applied to the Kashar cheeses after the cooking stage using an immersion technique to eliminate the negative effect of heat on the viability of starter cultures and their activities. Compositional, sensory and ripening characteristics including electrophoresis were determined. MA-culture showed the highest acid production capability while BT-culture possessed the highest proteolytic activity and sensory scores. The results suggest that the immersion technique has a potential use in the production of cooked-curd cheeses.

Potential lactobacilli isolates (20) from traditional yogurt samples were primarily selected based on their antimicrobial activity against common pathogens of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. Following this, the highest acidity values were determined in K1 (0.63%) and EPSC2 (0.61%) isolates after 6 h; KKC1 (1.62%) and EPSC2 (1.59%) after 24 h. The highest proteolytic activity in the first 36 h of incubation was observed in K11B, M2, CBB5 and CBB3 isolates while the lowest activity was in K10, M6, and KKC2 isolates, respectively. Subsequently, 10 isolates that carry the potential to be used as yogurt starter cultures were picked and identified at the molecular level using 16S rDNA sequences and a phylogenetic tree was created. The closest species to all of the selected isolates was determined to be Lactobacillus bulgaricus. The flavor profiles of these isolates indicated that the highest acetaldehyde concentrations were detected in the KKC1, M6, and KKC2 isolates while these values were found to be higher than that of the commercial Lactobacillus. Consequently, CBX, CBH4, M6, EPSC2, and KKC2 were found to possess the potential to be used as starter cultures therefore they could be recommended for utilization in fermented dairy products, especially yogurt.