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Cheese from Ireland, West Cork

Durrus

Raw cow milk is made with mesophilic lactic starters, then moulded and brined; the salt brine gives the rind its pink-yellow colour. The young cheeses are smeared with ripening cultures, and a surface flora led by the yeast Debaryomyces hansenii and the bacteria Corynebacterium casei and Arthrobacter arilaitensis grows on the rind. The round, semi-soft cheese ripens for about a month.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sources give no amounts or batch size; Durrus is made by one farmhouse dairy.
Raw cow milk from local herds[mounier2005][chefsmandala]
Mesophilic lactic starter[mounier2005]
Commercial smear cultures OFR9 and BL2[mounier2005]
Salt (brine)[chefsmandala]
Startermesophilic lactic starter; surface smear cultures

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days

Start
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What changes: Lactic starter goes into raw cow milk from local herds

Step 1 of 5
Set the raw milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Debaryomyces hansenii
Corynebacterium casei
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 cow milk is made with mesophilic lactic starters, then moulded and brined; the salt brine gives the rind its pink-yellow colour. The young cheeses are smeared with ripening cultures, and a surface flora led by the yeast Debaryomyces hansenii and the bacteria Corynebacterium casei and Arthrobacter arilaitensis grows on the rind. The round, semi-soft cheese ripens for about a month. Made in 5 steps over 30 days. The longest step, ripen, takes 30 days (Chef's Mandala). Salt is 3 % (Mounier J 2005). Mesophilic lactic starters and Debaryomyces hansenii, the only yeast found on the rind do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 daysReported[chefsmandala]Ripen
Salt3 %Measured[mounier2005]Smear and wash the rind

What makes this one different

An Irish farmhouse washed-rind cheese made from raw milk, where most Irish smear cheeses use pasteurised milk; its rind flora comes mostly from the dairy's own yeasts and bacteria, not from the cultures it is smeared with.

Milk
Raw cow milk, the only one of four Irish smear cheeses studied that is not made from pasteurised milk
Ripening
About a month; surface sampled at the midpoint of ripening

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is raw. The US FDA says ageing raw-milk cheese for 60 days may not remove E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella, and Listeria may grow in certain cheeses during ageing. The CDC says people at higher risk, including pregnant women, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity, should avoid cheese made with raw milk unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

History and sources

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

Jeffa Gill was part of the revival of Irish farmhouse cheese in the late 1970s and first made Durrus in 1979.

  1. [mounier2005] Mounier J., Gelsomino R., Goerges S., Vancanneyt M., Vandemeulebroecke K., Hoste B., Scherer S., Swings J., Fitzgerald G.F., Cogan T.M. 2005, Surface microflora of four smear-ripened cheeses, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 71(11):6489–6500paper
  2. [chefsmandala] Chef's Mandala, 'What is Durrus?'web
  3. [wiki-durrus] Wikipedia, 'Durrus Farmhouse Cheese'wiki
  4. [fda-rawcheese2016] US Food and Drug Administration 2016, FY 2014–2016 Microbiological Sampling Assignment Summary Report, Raw Milk Cheese Aged 60 Daysgov
  5. [cdc-listeria] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infectiongov