Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Switzerland, the Bernese Jura and canton of Jura

Fromages du Jura / Jurabergkäse (Chaux-d'Abel, Grand Chaux-d'Abel, Moron, Fornet)Fromages du Jura

Fromages du Jura are semi-hard, smear-rind cheeses of raw cow milk from the Jura mountains, named after their villages and related to Tête de Moine. At La Chaux-d'Abel the curd is cut to maize-kernel size, cooked to 45–49 °C, pressed, brined 12 hours and ripened on spruce boards, brushed with brine, for about two and a half months.

Fully documentedCheese2.5 monthsnone (Culinary Heritage of Switzerland inventory)Family: Cooked hard alpine cheese family (Comté, Gruyère and Emmentaler as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedVillage dairy practice. At La Chaux-d'Abel a 2,000 l steam-heated steel vat gives 27 wheels of Petit Chaux-d'Abel at 7 kg each, and Grand Chaux-d'Abel is made in a 1,200 l copper-lined vat. At Fornet-Dessous the dairy makes three to four vats of Fornet and 20 of Moron a month. The inventory gives no doses of culture or rennet. Wheels weigh 5–9 kg.
Raw cow milkAt La Chaux-d'Abel the evening milk is skimmed; at Fornet-Dessous whole milk is used[patrimoine-ch]
The dairy's own starter cultures[patrimoine-ch]
Animal rennet[patrimoine-ch]
SaltAs brine, also brushed on the rind[patrimoine-ch]
Starterthe dairy's own cultures (culture d'exploitation), added as the milk warms past 15 °C

Total time across the recorded steps: 2.5 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
10–32 °C

What changes: Starting material: raw skimmed evening milk and morning milk, warming in the vat

Step 1 of 7
Warm skimmed evening milk with morning milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
10–32 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
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

Fromages du Jura are semi-hard, smear-rind cheeses of raw cow milk from the Jura mountains, named after their villages and related to Tête de Moine. At La Chaux-d'Abel the curd is cut to maize-kernel size, cooked to 45–49 °C, pressed, brined 12 hours and ripened on spruce boards, brushed with brine, for about two and a half months. Made in 7 steps over 2.5 months. The longest step, brush with brine on spruce boards, takes at least 2.5 months (Verein Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz (Patrim…) and runs at 13–14 °C (Verein Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz (Patrim…).

Key numbers
Main stepat least 2.5 monthsReported[patrimoine-ch]Brush with brine on spruce boards
Temperature13–14 °CReported[patrimoine-ch]Brush with brine on spruce boards

What makes this one different

These are village-dairy cheeses of the Jura, cooked to about 45–52 °C, lower than Gruyère's 54–59 °C, and brushed with brine into a smear rind. They come from the same tradition as Tête de Moine but are sold as cutting cheeses, named after the villages that make them.

Size
5–9 kg, 7–12 cm high, 24–38 cm across; Moron about 4 kg; Fornet 7–9 kg
Fat
About 50–51% fat in dry matter (Moron, Fornet, petit Chaux-d'Abel)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Petit Chaux-d'AbelAbout 7 kg; curd cut to maize-kernel size, brined 12 hours
  • Grand Chaux-d'AbelGruyère-like; curd cut to wheat-grain size, brined 48 hours
  • Moron (organic)About 4 kg, 24 cm across; whole milk, cooked just over 50 °C; aged about a year it is sold as "Notre Vieux Bio"
  • Fornet7–9 kg, 27 cm across; cooked to 50–52 °C, ready after 3.5–4 months

Safety

The inventory describes these as raw-milk cheeses, but Fromages Spielhofer, which now sells Chaux-d'Abel, says it is made from thermised milk, so the sources disagree for that cheese. For raw milk, ANSES names Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli as the risks of raw-milk cheeses and advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat them, except cooked pressed cheeses.

History and sources

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

The Premonstratensian abbey of Bellelay was founded in 1136, and its cheese has been produced since the 14th century according to current sources; a 1471 rule capped traders' margins on Bellelay cheese. Anabaptists who settled in the Jura took over the cheese tradition. Village dairies appeared in the Jura in the late 19th century and made Gruyère; the Fromages du Jura faded but never vanished. A legend dates the petit Chaux-d'Abel to a hard winter around 1890.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [patrimoine-ch] Verein Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz (Patrimoine culinaire suisse), national inventory entry 'Fromages du Jura (Jurabergkäse)', no. 466archive
  2. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  3. [spielhofer] Fromages Spielhofer SA, product page 'Chaux-d'Abel', Saint-Imier (producer's page)web