The Ultimate Chocolate Milk

If you look at the chocolate milk you bought from the grocery stores and supermarkets, you might notice some cocoa sedimentation occurs, your cocoa and milk got separated. It has stability defect! Many people underestimate the effect of stability defect. The cocoa sedimentation reduces your cocoa experience. Your chocolate milk taste wouldn’t be optimal. Its stability defect results in grainy texture. The color becomes pale and unattractive.

Chocolate milk is the hardest flavored milk to stabilize. Many tries, and most fails. This is why you still see “Shake Before Consume” instruction in many chocolate milk packaging.

Instead of fixing the stability issue, many producers choose to hide the stability problem inside the packaging so that consumers are unaware of it. They go through the trouble of educating people to shake their products before consumption, and giving consumers the impression that it is normal to have the cocoa sedimentation.

Well, to pursue the discovery of the perfect chocolate milk, we must say, a stability defect in chocolate milk, is simply a product defect that cannot be tolerated.

The Critical Attributes of Chocolate Milk

There are several different attributes that influences the taste and profile of chocolate milk:

• Choice of milk source

• Type of chocolate or cocoa powder

• Choice of sugar and its amount

• Choice of stabilizers

• The right processes and procedures

Choice of Milk Source

There are many different sources of milk. Fresh milk from different kinds of cows, full cream milk powder, skimmed milk powder, and so on. Different milk sources have different characters and profiles. Fresh milk for example is the simplest milk source to stabilize, and skimmed milk powder is the hardest. These combination of different forms of milk sources, with the addition of protein, fat, and calcium, creates some more complicated stability issue.

Choice of Chocolate or Cocoa Powder

Different chocolate sources have different taste and mouthfeel. Chocolate contains more cacao butter while cocoa powder contains a little to no cacao butter. Different processing of cacao will also give different flavor to our milk. The addition of sugar not only adds sweet taste to our chocolate milk, but also helps stabilizing the whole system in chocolate milk.

Choice of Stabilizer

Stabilizing chocolate milk is very essential. Stability issues effect the quality, performance, and appearance of beverages. Cocoa sedimentation reduces the intensity of the chocolate flavor. Shaken cocoa sediment could result sandy texture and mouthfeel. Fat and protein separation can cause marbling and syneresis issues. Wrong combination of stabilizers would not eliminate stability issues, but could also create additional problems. The most common hydrocolloid used in many chocolate milk is Carrageenan. Carrageenan is hydrocolloid that are produced from seaweed. The wrong type and dosage of carrageenan would give us unwanted gelling problem, in addition to the cocoa sedimentation. Therefore, formulating the right stabilizing system in your chocolate milk is the most important process in developing the perfect chocolate milk.

Most stabilizers consist of hydrocolloids and emulsifiers. Choosing the right combination of hydrocolloids and emulsifiers will help develop chocolate milk in the optimal condition. Examples of hydrocolloids that are commonly used in chocolate milk are:

• Colloidal Microcrystalline Cellulose (MCC)

• Carrageenan

• Guar Gum

• Xanthan Gum

• Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC)

• Etc.

The right Processing and Procedures

There are many different sources of milk. Fresh milk from different kinds of cows, full cream milk powder, skimmed milk powder, and so on. Different milk sources have different characters and profiles. Fresh milk for example is the simplest milk source to stabilize, and skimmed milk powder is the hardest. These combination of different forms of milk sources, with the addition of protein, fat, and calcium, creates some more complicated stability issue.

Mixing Process

Homogenization

Each particles and ingredients exist in milk has different sizes and density. Therefore it is not easy to combine all ingredients to be homogeneous. Homogenization process gives uniformity in fat and protein particle size and help further activate stabilizers in milk by pumping liquid milk through small opening pipe in high pressure. In results homogenization gives uniformity, richer, and smoother milk.

Sterilization

Sterilization method determines the shelf-life of our dairy product. To prevent milk going bad prematurely because of bacteria and other germs, we need to sterilize our milk chocolate. There are different type of sterilization that are commonly used in dairy industry:

• Pasteurization

• Ultra High Temperature (UHT)

• High Temperature Short Time (HTST)

Filling and Packaging

Filling and packaging process is the final process in our chocolate milk production. To protect our homogenized and sterilized chocolate milk, we need to let it cool before filling. Optimal filling temperature depends on the type of packaging we choose. There are different types of milk packaging available in the market. All milk packaging must meet strict food safety requirements. Out of the many types of packaging, only certain ones can be used for different types of sterilization of milk product. One thing all kinds of milk packaging share is the necessity of maintaining the freshness and protecting the flavor of the milk product.

Choice Considerations

There many factors that influences our choices of ingredients and processes. There are places where fresh milk availability is scarce, and economic ability is restricted. In those conditions, we need to reformulate our chocolate milk to a lower cost ingredients.

Reduction the usage of fresh milk in favor of milk powder and skimmed milk powder would introduce additional vegetable fat or milk fat powder, protein powder, and calcium. Choice of lower cost cocoa powder and the reduction of its dosage can be substituted with chocolate flavoring. All the additional of these ingredients would make the choice of stabilizing system more important than ever.