Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Greece

Myzithra (Mizithra)μυζήθρα

Myzithra is a traditional Greek whey cheese made from sheep and/or goat whey. In the study makes, about 10 % ovine milk is added to the whey. Whey cheeses in general are made by heating the whey above 80–95 °C, so its proteins clot and the curd gathers on the surface. Fresh myzithra is heat-set with no starter. A 2022 paper says heating leaves fresh whey cheeses practically free of native microbes, and handling then contaminates them; a dried form also exists.

Fully documentedCheesenone of its own in the EU register; the Cretan relative Xynomyzithra Kritis is a PDO (registered 1996)Family: Whey cheese (heat-precipitated whey protein) family

Recipe

Myzithra (Mizithra), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: grongar, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceStudy makes added 10 % ovine milk to the whey (Kaminarides et al. 2018); traditional makes have no fixed amounts.
Whey from sheep and/or goat cheesemakingWhey of feta or of cooked hard cheeses such as kefalotyri and graviera[sameli2021][andritsos2023]
Sheep milk, whole or skimmedAbout 10 % of the whey (in study makes)In one study, skimmed milk gave a harder texture and 9.24 % fat[kaminarides2015][kaminarides2018]
Starternone in fresh myzithra; one study fermented the whey first with Streptococcus thermophilus
Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Sheep or goat whey from cheesemaking goes into the vat, with a little milk

Step 1 of 5
Collect whey and add milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: whey with some milk.

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

Myzithra is a traditional Greek whey cheese made from sheep and/or goat whey. In the study makes, about 10 % ovine milk is added to the whey. Whey cheeses in general are made by heating the whey above 80–95 °C, so its proteins clot and the curd gathers on the surface. Fresh myzithra is heat-set with no starter. A 2022 paper says heating leaves fresh whey cheeses practically free of native microbes, and handling then contaminates them; a dried form also exists.

Key numbers
AciditypH 6.2 → 5.83Measured[govaris2001]Keep fresh myzithra cold

What makes this one different

Myzithra is made mostly from whey, with at most about 10 % milk in the studies, and is set by heat rather than rennet or bacteria, so the fresh cheese is hardly fermented at all. Its Cretan relative xynomyzithra is pressed for a week to raise its acidity and ripened for at least 2 months.

Composition
Fresh Myzithra at most 70 % moisture and at least 50 % fat in dry matter (Greek rules as cited)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fresh myzithraSoft, at most 70 % moisture, and perishable; Greek whey cheeses in air are often limited to 5–7 days of shelf life.
  • Dried myzithraA salt-dried grating cheese (Wikipedia); a Greek plant monitored in 2016–2019 made both fresh and dried Myzithra.
  • XynomyzithraA Cretan whey cheese. The whey is heated to 90 °C, and up to 15 % full-cream milk is usually added at about 68–70 °C on the way up. It is pressed a week to raise its acidity and ripened at least 2 months; Xynomyzithra Kritis is PDO.

Safety

Heating the whey inactivates its native bacteria, so fresh myzithra spoils mainly from microbes that get in afterwards. Listeria monocytogenes has been isolated from it, and E. coli O157:H7 can grow in it at 12 °C; keep it cold. Cold alone is not enough. In a lab test, Listeria still grew in vacuum-packed fresh Anthotyros, a related whey cheese, in the first two weeks at 4 °C.

Hazards the sources name: Listeria monocytogenes, isolated from fresh and dried Myzithra and processing surfaces; Escherichia coli O157:H7 grew at 12 °C and survived at 2 °C in Myzithra.

History and sources

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

The Cretan relative Xynomyzithra Kritis is in the EU register. Its 1994 application, from the cheesemakers' association of Rethymnos prefecture, says the cheese has a history of many centuries; it was registered as a PDO on 21 June 1996. Greek rules cited by Sameli and colleagues (2021) allow fresh Myzithra at most 70 % moisture and at least 50 % fat in dry matter. A 1996 study cited by Samelis and Sameli (2022) found that Myzithra, Anthotyros and Manouri all let Listeria grow at 5, 12 and 22 °C.

  1. [sameli2021] Sameli N., Sioziou E., Bosnea L., Kakouri A., Samelis J. 2021, Assessment of the spoilage microbiota during refrigerated (4 °C) vacuum-packed storage of fresh Greek Anthotyros whey cheese without or with a crude enterocin A-B-P-containing extract, Foods 10(12):2946paper
  2. [samelis2022] Sameli N., Samelis J. 2022, Growth and biocontrol of Listeria monocytogenes in Greek Anthotyros whey cheese without or with a crude enterocin A-B-P extract, Foods 11(3):334paper
  3. [govaris2001] Govaris A., Koidis P., Papatheodorou K. 2001, The fate of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Myzithra, Anthotyros, and Manouri whey cheeses during storage at 2 and 12 °C, Food Microbiology 18(5):565–570, doi:10.1006/fmic.2001.0419 (abstract)paper
  4. [kaminarides2015] Kaminarides S., Ilias-Dimopoulos E., Zoidou E., Moatsou G. 2015, The effect of addition of skimmed milk on the characteristics of Myzithra cheeses, Food Chemistry 180:164–170, doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.01.086 (abstract)paper
  5. [kaminarides2018] Kaminarides S., Aktypis A., Koronios G., Massouras T., Papanikolaou S. 2018, Effect of 'in situ' produced bacteriocin thermophilin T on the microbiological and physicochemical characteristics of Myzithra whey cheese, International Journal of Dairy Technology 71:213–222, doi:10.1111/1471-0307.12448 (abstract)paper
  6. [andritsos2023] Andritsos N.D., Mataragas M. 2023, Characterization and antibiotic resistance of Listeria monocytogenes strains isolated from Greek Myzithra soft whey cheese and related food processing surfaces over two-and-a-half years of safety monitoring in a cheese processing facility, Foods 12(6):1200, doi:10.3390/foods12061200paper
  7. [xyn-reg] European Commission, eAmbrosia register, Xynomyzithra Kritis (PDO-GR-0448), summary sheet of the 1994 application (Ministerial Decision 313051/14/1/94), registered 21 June 1996spec
  8. [wp-mizithra] Wikipedia, Mizithrawiki