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Cheese from Italy, Piemonte

Caprino lattico piemontese

A name that groups Piedmont's acid-set goat cheeses with no historic name of their own. Whole goat milk, raw or pasteurised, is soured with whey or cultures, then set slowly with a tiny dose of rennet over 12–24 hours at 20–25 °C. The curd goes uncut into moulds, is dry-salted and eaten fresh or ripened at 8–12 °C for days to months, often flowered with mould.

Fully documentedCheese3.1 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Piemonte; no. 87 in the Piemonte part of the national PAT list)Family: Lactic soft-ripened cheese family (goat/sheep/cow lactic curd)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe rennet dose is the regional sheet's, per 100 litres of milk, written there as "1/10 cc"; it gives no other doses. Most cheeses weigh 100–500 g, some 1–2 kg.
Whole goat milk, raw or pasteurised[pat-sheet]
Whey from the last make, or selected lactic culturesTraditionally whey added to fresh milk cooled to 20–25 °C and held up to 12 hours[pat-sheet]
Animal liquid rennet1/10 cc per 100 litres of milk[pat-sheet]
Fine salt, for dry-salting[pat-sheet]
Chestnut leaves (some makers, for refining)[onaf-sheet]
Starterwhey from the previous make (traditional) or selected lactic cultures

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.1 months

Start
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20–25 °C

What changes: Whey from the last batch goes into the cooled milk and sours it for up to 12 hours

Step 1 of 5
Sour the milk with whey or cultures
Time
up to 12 h
Reported
Temperature
20–25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Some traditions start from sweet milk with no souring.

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 Piedmont's acid-set goat cheeses with no historic name of their own. Whole goat milk, raw or pasteurised, is soured with whey or cultures, then set slowly with a tiny dose of rennet over 12–24 hours at 20–25 °C. The curd goes uncut into moulds, is dry-salted and eaten fresh or ripened at 8–12 °C for days to months, often flowered with mould. Made in 5 steps over 3.1 months. The longest step, ripen, takes up to 3 months (Regione Piemonte 2015) and runs at 8–12 °C (Regione Piemonte 2015).

Key numbers
Main stepup to 3 monthsReported[pat-sheet]Ripen
Temperature8–12 °CReported[pat-sheet]Ripen

What makes this one different

A name coined to group Piedmont's lactic goat cheeses. Acid does most of the setting, over 12–24 hours, so the curd is never cut, unlike Piedmont's rennet-set caprino.

Size
Usually 100–500 g, sometimes 1–2 kg; often cylindrical
Under oil
Very dry cheeses may be cut up and kept under olive oil in a glass jar for months

Related ferments

Variants

  • FreshA few hours' draining, then kept at 4 °C; no rind.
  • RipenedDays to months at 8–12 °C, often with a mould-flowered rind; sometimes refined in chestnut leaves.
  • Under oilVery dry cheese cut up and covered with olive oil in a glass jar.

Safety

Made from raw or pasteurised milk and often eaten young; keep fresh cheeses at 4 °C. Some makers keep pieces of the dry, well-aged cheese covered with olive oil for several months; the regional sheet gives no safety test of this. Where the milk is raw, 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 name does not appear in old texts. Goat dairying in Piedmont never grew like cow dairying, and the lactic method spread in recent decades from the cheese known as Formaggetta.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Piemonte, D.D. 24 July 2015 n. 460, Schede tecniche prodotti PAT 2015 (BU38S1, 24 September 2015), category D product 05 'Caprino lattico piemontese' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Caprino lattico piemontese'web
  3. [pat-national] Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali ai sensi dell'articolo 12, comma 1, della legge 12 dicembre 2016, n. 238, Allegato I, Regione Piemonte, no. 87 'Caprino lattico piemontese' (copy hosted by informacibo.it)gov
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov