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Cheese from Belgium

Herve PDOFromage de Herve

Cow milk, raw or pasteurised, is set with rennet and cut about 1.5 hours later, first into four pieces and then into hazelnut-size grains. The curd is shaped between wooden planks, turned 4 or 5 times a day for two days, cut into cubes and salted. In damp cellars the cubes are washed 2 or 3 times a week for the first fortnight, then weekly, and ripen 5–6 weeks for the mild doux or 2 months for the piquant.

Fully documentedCheese51 days – 2.5 monthsPDO (EU); the application file was received on 12 March 1996Family: Washed-rind (smear-ripened) cheese family (Munster and Époisses as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe PDO summary describes the traditional method without quantities. Cheeses are cubes or blocks of 50, 100, 200 or 400 g.
Cow milk from the Herve plateau, untreated or pasteurised[herve-pdo]
Rennet[herve-pdo]
Salt[herve-pdo]
Water for washing the cheesesThe PDO summary names the water used to wash the cheeses and the planks as a source of the cellar ferments.[herve-pdo]
Starternone in the traditional recipe, which relies on local ferments; a study reports starters and Brevibacterium linens added in current production

Total time across the recorded steps: 51 days – 2.5 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactococcus lactisCorynebacterium caseiStaphylococcus equorumBrevibacterium linens32 °C

What changes: Rennet sets the warm cow milk in a vat over about an hour and a half

Step 1 of 6
Set the milk with rennet
Time
1.5 h
Set
Temperature
32 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
Corynebacterium casei
Staphylococcus equorum
Brevibacterium linens
Yeasts
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

Cow milk, raw or pasteurised, is set with rennet and cut about 1.5 hours later, first into four pieces and then into hazelnut-size grains. The curd is shaped between wooden planks, turned 4 or 5 times a day for two days, cut into cubes and salted. In damp cellars the cubes are washed 2 or 3 times a week for the first fortnight, then weekly, and ripen 5–6 weeks for the mild doux or 2 months for the piquant. Made in 6 steps over 51 days – 2.5 months. The longest step, ripen, takes 35 days – 2 months (Ministère de la Région Wallonne 2081). Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, the main species inside the cheese and common on the rind and Rind smear bacteria, mainly Corynebacterium casei, Psychrobacter spp., Staphylococcus equorum and Vagococcus salmoninarum; Brevibacterium linens only 0.5–1.6 % although inoculated do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step35 days – 2 monthsSet[herve-pdo]Ripen
Temperature32 °CReported[pays-de-herve]Set the milk with rennet

What makes this one different

A Belgian washed-rind cheese made as small cubes and ripened in damp cellars where the washing water and walls supply the smear. It is sold mild (doux) after 5–6 weeks or piquant after 2 months.

Size
Cube or block of 50, 100, 200 or 400 g
Fat
At least 45 % fat in dry matter
Ripening
5–6 weeks for doux, 2 months for piquant
Rind counts
Total bacteria reached almost 8 log cfu/g in both raw and pasteurised milk cheeses

Related ferments

Variants

  • Herve douxRipened 5–6 weeks.
  • Herve piquantRipened about 2 months.

Safety

Herve may be made from raw or pasteurised milk. A study of 11 raw and pasteurised milk cheeses found their microbiota very close, probably because of the shared method. Its abstract reports no pathogen test. CDC advises pregnant women, newborns, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity to avoid any cheese made from unpasteurised milk, because of Listeria.

History and sources

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

The PDO summary dates the cheese to the 15th century on the farms around Herve, where surplus milk was kept into winter by fermenting the fresh curd. When wheat exports were banned under Charles V, more land went to pasture by the mid-16th century and cheese making grew. Variants were sold as remoudous (a recipe recorded in 1512), quatre saisons or bizeux. The Pays de Herve tourism office traces the oldest mention of the cheese to 1228 and records cheese owed in a house sale in 1466 and again in 1508. Before 1930 almost every farm in the area made it; by the 1990s about ten artisan cheesemakers remained, and local dairies made 80 % of the 550 tonnes ripened in 1991.

  1. [herve-pdo] Ministère de la Région Wallonne, application for registration of 'Fromage de Herve' PDO under Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92, file G/B/0312/940125, English summary sheet from the eAmbrosia registerspec
  2. [delcenserie2014] Delcenserie V., Taminiau B., Delhalle L., Nezer C., Doyen P., Crevecoeur S., Roussey D., Korsak N., Daube G. 2014, Microbiota characterization of a Belgian protected designation of origin cheese, Herve cheese, using metagenomic analysis, Journal of Dairy Science 97(10):6046–6056 (abstract)paper
  3. [pays-de-herve] Pays de Herve tourism office, 'Tout savoir sur… le fromage de Herve, le cidre, le sirop' (leaflet, in French)web
  4. [cdc-listeria] CDC, Preventing Listeria Infection (web page, accessed 2026-10)gov