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Cheese from Italy, Lombardia

Caprino a coagulazione lattica

Raw goat milk is set mainly by its own souring, not by rennet. Left alone this takes 24–36 hours; makers now warm the milk a little and add lactic cultures and sometimes a trace of rennet, so it sets in 12–18 hours. The soft curd is ladled uncut into small perforated tubes, drained for about a day, dry-salted and sold fresh or ripened about a week under a thin white mould.

Fully documentedCheese9.5 days – 14 daysTraditional food product (PAT, Lombardia)Family: Fresh lactic (acid-set) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give temperatures and times but no batch size or doses. Each cheese weighs 100–200 g.
Raw whole goat milkTraditionally freshly milked; or kept at 4 °C for at most 24 hours[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Mesophilic lactic bacteria[onaf-sheet]
Calf liquid rennet, a very small amount (optional)[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt, for dry-salting[onaf-sheet]
Herbs and spices on the surface (optional)[onaf-sheet]
Startermesophilic lactic bacteria

Total time across the recorded steps: 9.5 days – 14 days

Start
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20–25 °C

What changes: The goat milk warms a little and lactic cultures go in

Step 1 of 5
Warm the milk and add cultures
Time
Not documented
Temperature
20–25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Milk kept at 4 °C for up to 24 hours is first warmed. Lactic cultures and sometimes a very small amount of calf rennet go in to start the set.

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

Raw goat milk is set mainly by its own souring, not by rennet. Left alone this takes 24–36 hours; makers now warm the milk a little and add lactic cultures and sometimes a trace of rennet, so it sets in 12–18 hours. The soft curd is ladled uncut into small perforated tubes, drained for about a day, dry-salted and sold fresh or ripened about a week under a thin white mould. Made in 5 steps over 9.5 days – 14 days. The longest step, sell fresh or ripen, takes 7–10 days (Regione Lombardia) and runs at 8–10 °C (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)).

Key numbers
Main step7–10 daysReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Sell fresh or ripen
Temperature8–10 °CReported[onaf-sheet]Sell fresh or ripen

What makes this one different

Lombardy's generic lactic goat cheese. Acid, not rennet, sets it, so the curd is soft and is ladled uncut.

Size
Small cylinder about 5 cm long and 2 cm wide, 100–200 g, no rind
Other summary
The Capre.it goat portal summarises the Lombard sheet as slow coagulation of 24 hours at 20 °C, dry salting by hand, ripening of 2 days and then a week, and a weight of about 80 to 100 g, which differs from the 100–200 g above
Season
All year, most from March to September

Related ferments

Variants

  • FreshSold at once, no rind; may be coated with herbs or spices.
  • RipenedAbout a week; white mould skin, creamy under the rind, stronger goat flavour.

Safety

Made from raw goat milk and eaten fresh or after about a week, so it is a fresh raw-milk cheese. Keep it at 4 °C. ANSES, the French food safety agency, names Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as the main hazards of raw-milk cheeses. It advises pregnant women, people over 65, people with weak immunity and young children not to eat raw-milk cheeses, except cooked pressed ones such as Comté.

History and sources

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

One of the most common Lombard cheeses. The regional sheet says it was made from the days when households left milk near a stove to sour, and that the Region holds records proving its production for more than 25 years. It explains that goat milk has less casein than cow milk, so its curd is soft and suits fresh cheeses rather than long ageing.

  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Lombardia, traditional product sheet 'Caprino a coagulazione lattica' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Caprino a coagulazione lattica', citing ERSAF Lombardiaweb
  3. [capre-it] Capre.it (Italian goat portal), product page 'Caprino a coagulazione lattica' (Lombardia)web
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov