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Cheese from Italy, Piemonte

Caprino della Val Vigezzo

A name that groups the small rennet-set goat cheeses of the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province. Raw goat milk, often from two milkings, is set with animal rennet at 30–39 °C in 30–60 minutes, broken to hazelnut or rice size and held warm in moulds for a few hours. It is salted the next day and ripened a few days to a month on wooden boards, sometimes 3–4 months.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe regional sheet gives temperature and time ranges but no batch size or doses; each farm works a little differently. Each cheese weighs 0.3–1.0 kg.
Raw whole goat milk, often from two milkings, one of them chilled[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Animal rennet[onaf-sheet]
Salt, dry or as brine[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4 months

Start
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What changes: Raw goat milk from two milkings warms in a copper kettle

Step 1 of 6
Warm the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
L. mesenteroides

Milk of two milkings, one of them chilled, is warmed in a copper kettle over a wood or gas fire, usually with no souring beforehand.

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

A name that groups the small rennet-set goat cheeses of the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province. Raw goat milk, often from two milkings, is set with animal rennet at 30–39 °C in 30–60 minutes, broken to hazelnut or rice size and held warm in moulds for a few hours. It is salted the next day and ripened a few days to a month on wooden boards, sometimes 3–4 months. Made in 6 steps over 4 months. The longest step, ripen on wooden boards, takes up to 4 months (Regione Piemonte 2015). Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, the main bacteria of a related Piedmont raw goat milk cheese, Robiola di Roccaverano PDO, made with an added natural milk culture does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepup to 4 monthsReported[pat-sheet]Ripen on wooden boards
Temperature30–39 °CReported[pat-sheet]Set with rennet

What makes this one different

Not one recipe but a name for the province's similar small rennet goat cheeses. Careful milking and making keep the goat flavour mild.

Size
Cylinder 8–20 cm across with a 4–12 cm side, 0.3–1.0 kg
Season
Only from late June to early September (ONAF sheet)

Related ferments

Variants

  • FreshA few days to a month; soft.
  • Semi-agedKept 3–4 months.

Safety

Made from raw goat milk and often eaten after a few days to a month, so it is a young raw-milk cheese. Keep it cold. 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

The ONAF sheet says goat keeping in the Val Vigezzo is centuries old. The old statutes of the Ossola communes, from 1600 on, limited grazing because the goats were so many they damaged vines, fruit trees and chestnut groves. The cheese, also called furmagit at crava, once fed local families and was traded for other goods.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Piemonte, D.D. 24 July 2015 n. 460, Schede tecniche prodotti PAT 2015 (BU38S1, 24 September 2015), category D product 08 'Caprino della Val Vigezzo' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Caprino della Val Vigezzo'web
  3. [biolcati2021] Biolcati F, Ferrocino I, Bottero MT, Dalmasso A (2021) The Bacterial and Fungal Microbiota of "Robiola di Roccaverano" Protected Designation of Origin Raw Milk Cheese. Frontiers in Microbiology 12:776862paper
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov