Micro Filtered Whey Protein

For this type of process there are a number of different names: CFM, ultrafiltration, microfiltration and nanofiltration but are all the same method which we will refer to as CFM. This is another excellent method to extract high quality whey protein , using milk and not cheese as the source, with slightly different benefits. These methods can also be used on sweet dairy whey with equal success. Initially the source of milk generally comes from New Zealand Dairies or France where there are much stricter laws regarding milk production. The cows are not allowed to be heavily drugged up and mass produced or genetically modified such as those America. The milk is then centrifugally spun at very high speeds to make it curdle, so the fat content can be removed. This leaves skimmed milk, with a fat content of around 0.5%. In order to cause the casein to curdle the milk is acidified at a pH of 4.6 and no lower so as not to denature the protein. The curd (casein) is then easily strained off, leaving the raw whey protein ready to work with. Using different membrane sizes the whey is fed through a funnel type of machine, where through selective filtration the particles not wanted are removed.

Firstly Ultra filtration is used as it removes most of the lactose and minerals but still leaves the fat and protein content intact. Secondly Nano-filtration is used to remove the undesirable minerals such as sodium, and other mineral that are not required or need to be reduced. finally micro-filtration is used for removing the remainder of fats and lactose (leaving figures of around 1 - 2%). the result is a very high quality whey protein isolate, which is low in fat, carbohydrate and lactose. The reason why this technique is used is the membranes do not trap the large protein molecules, leaving the inferior or unwanted ingredients to pass through the membrane. 

Although this is a great method for producing a nice, pure whey protein, it cannot alter the protein fraction content such as BLG or ALA, as the ion exchange method is so effective at. As with an ion exchange process the protein is cold spray dried, as if temperatures are too high the protein would be damaged.