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Cheese from Serbia

Beli sir (Serbian white brined cheese)beli sir

Beli sir ("white cheese") stands for the white brined cheeses that are among the most commonly produced and widely eaten in Serbia. In mountain village households raw milk is renneted straight after milking, the curd is drained in a cloth, dry-salted and packed in layers in a wooden vat, then covered with a brine of whey and salted water to ripen for one to two months.

Fully documentedCheese30 days – 2 monthsFamily: White brined cheese family (Feta PDO as template)

Recipe

Beli sir (Serbian white brined cheese), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Иван, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedThe household method in the sources gives no amounts. In one dairy version (Homoljski sir, made for a salt study) rennet was dosed at 0.16 g per 10 L and the ripening brine held 12 % salt (NaCl in the control, NaCl and KCl mixes in the test variants).
Raw milk, straight from milkingCow, sheep or goat; not chilled; no commercial starter in household cheese[ledina2024][miocinovic2022]
Rennet[ledina2024]
SaltDry salt on the curd, then a brine of whey and salted water[ledina2024]
Starterno commercial starter in household cheese; the Homolje dairy make adds a starter culture

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days – 2 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaL. plantarumL. paracaseiL. paraplantarum

What changes: Rennet goes into raw milk straight after milking, and the curd forms within about an hour

Step 1 of 5
Rennet the fresh milk
Time
1 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
L. plantarum
L. paracasei
L. paraplantarum
Lactobacilli

Rennet goes into raw, unchilled milk right after milking. In the Homolje dairy make the milk is pasteurised at 72 °C for 20 s, cooled to 32 ± 1 °C and given a starter before the rennet.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Beli sir ("white cheese") stands for the white brined cheeses that are among the most commonly produced and widely eaten in Serbia. In mountain village households raw milk is renneted straight after milking, the curd is drained in a cloth, dry-salted and packed in layers in a wooden vat, then covered with a brine of whey and salted water to ripen for one to two months. Made in 5 steps over 30 days – 2 months. The longest step, ripen under brine, takes 30 days – 2 months (Ledina T 2024) and runs at 14–16 °C (Ledina T 2024). Salt is 12 % (Miocinovic J 2022). Lactic acid bacteria of traditional Serbian white brined cheeses; in ripened cheese mainly Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Lacticaseibacillus paracasei, Lactiplantibacillus paraplantarum and Levilactobacillus brevis, with leuconostocs and enterococci does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 days – 2 monthsReported[ledina2024]Ripen under brine
Temperature14–16 °CReported[ledina2024]Ripen under brine
Salt12 %Reported[miocinovic2022]Ripen under brine

What makes this one different

Beli sir is a group of home and dairy cheeses rather than one recipe. The Homolje cheeses have a national appellation of origin, while village makers rennet the raw milk straight after milking with no commercial starter and brine the curd with a mix of whey and salted water in wooden vats.

Milk
Cow, sheep or goat milk; raw in village cheese
Ripening
One to two months in brine at about 14–16 °C
Salt
White brined cheeses of this group usually hold 55–90 g of salt per litre of cheese moisture

Related ferments

Variants

  • Homoljski sirSerbian appellations of origin for Homolje sheep cheese and cow cheese, from the Homolje mountains; a cube of 10 × 10 × 7 cm and 800–1000 g with no visible rind, tasting moderately milky, sour and salty; the sheep cheese is conspicuously white and the cow cheese whitish-yellowish

Safety

Village beli sir is made from raw, unrefrigerated milk with no commercial starter. The sources give white brined cheeses 55–90 g of salt per litre of moisture, and in a Homolje dairy make the pH fell from 5.36 on day 1 to 4.69 on day 30. That make pasteurised the milk at 72 °C for 20 s. For the raw-milk village cheese, ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than hard cooked ones, because of Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Ledina and colleagues (2024) say cattle, sheep and goat farming made milk always essential to the agriculture of the Balkan Peninsula, and that mountain village households make the cheese from raw milk with no commercial starter. Miocinovic and colleagues (2022) add that Homoljski sir is protected by geographical origin at national level.

  1. [ledina2024] Ledina T, Đorđević J, Glišić M, Čobanović N, Kovandžić M, Bulajić S. 2024. Technological and Functional Characteristics of Lactic Acid Bacteria from Traditional Serbian Cheeses. Foods 14, 38paper
  2. [miocinovic2022] Miocinovic J, Miloradovic Z, Radovanovic M, Sredovic Ignjatovic I, Radulovic A, Nastaj M, Sołowiej BG, Tomasevic I. 2022. Sodium Reduction by Partial and Total Replacement of NaCl with KCl in Serbian White Brined Cheese. Foods 11, 374paper
  3. [zis-homolje] Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia, appellation of origin Reg. no. 12 'Sheep cheese from Homolje' and Reg. no. 14 'Cow cheese from Homolje', English abstracts of the studiesgov
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov