What is UHT Milk? – UHT milk, or Ultra Heat Treatment Milk, is a commonly used technique in the processing of milk by milk production facilities to ensure the food safety of the milk. In the UHT process, milk is exposed to ultra heat for a short time so as to kill off any unwanted and harmful bacteria that may be present in raw milk, yet still retain its nutritional content. The higher temperatures that are used in this process help to ensure that milk is not only safe to consume, but also shelf-stable when packaged. This allows the finished product to be kept in its sealed and unopened packaging at ambient room temperature for extended periods of time. The UHT process is a kind of pasteurization process, although it is carried out at higher temperatures as compared to pasteurized milk.
What is UHT Milk?
While UHT milk has many qualities that lend themselves to be easily used by almost anyone and everyone, there are certain things that UHT milk cannot do. For example, during the UHT process, the whey proteins in the milk do change in their structure, and as a result, cheese and butter cannot be made using UHT milk, as they call for the protein structures that are found in pasteurized milk, whole milk, fresh milk, or even raw milk. Additionally, because of the change in protein structure within UHT milk, the taste of UHT milk is somewhat different. It can appear sweeter to certain palates, while sometimes also presenting a “cooked” taste. Depending on the individual using the milk, these traits can be viewed either as desirable or undesirable for the use case. As such, fresh milk and other milk format alternatives still exist to cater to a wider audience.
For example, in the specialty coffee industry, where specialty coffee shops use frothed milk to free-pour latte art designs, baristas rely on the fat and protein structures found in fresh milk to produce a rich velvety texture within the frothed milk – sometimes known as microfoam. This process is possible with other types of milk, though fresh milk or whole milk remains the preferred choice among baristas.
