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Cheese from Italy, Piemonte

Nostrale d'Alpe

Nostrale d'Alpe is an uncooked, pressed cow cheese made only from summer pasture milk in the Cuneo Alps. Raw milk is set at 32–37 °C in 45–60 minutes, the curd is cut to rice-grain size and stirred but never heated. It is pressed, broken by hand and pressed again for up to 12 hours, then salted and ripened from over 35 days to 12 months in alpine cellars.

Fully documentedCheese37 days – 12 monthsPAT (Regione Piemonte, 2015 technical sheets, category D no. 22)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe regional sheet gives the method but no amounts. A wheel weighs 3–7 kg.
Raw cow milk of two consecutive milkings, one of which may be skimmed by letting the cream riseKept in the vat or in churns set in a running-water trough until made; it should have little or no fermentation acidity[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Liquid calf rennet[onaf-sheet]
Salt, dry or as brine[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 37 days – 12 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactococcus lactisLactobacillus plantarum32–37 °C

What changes: Calf rennet goes into the raw pasture milk at 32–37 °C and sets it firm

Step 1 of 6
Set the raw milk with rennet
Time
45 min – 1 h
Reported
Temperature
32–37 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
Lactobacillus plantarum

Output: a firm curd that cuts cleanly.

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

Nostrale d'Alpe is an uncooked, pressed cow cheese made only from summer pasture milk in the Cuneo Alps. Raw milk is set at 32–37 °C in 45–60 minutes, the curd is cut to rice-grain size and stirred but never heated. It is pressed, broken by hand and pressed again for up to 12 hours, then salted and ripened from over 35 days to 12 months in alpine cellars. Made in 6 steps over 37 days – 12 months. The longest step, ripen in alpine cellars, takes 35 days – 12 months (Regione Piemonte 2015) and runs at up to 12 °C (Regione Piemonte 2015). Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, the species most often isolated during manufacture, and Lactobacillus plantarum and L. paracasei, most often isolated from ripened cheese, in Castelmagno PDO, a related raw-milk cow cheese of the Cuneo valleys does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step35 days – 12 monthsReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen in alpine cellars
Temperatureup to 12 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Ripen in alpine cellars

What makes this one different

Unlike other alpine cheeses the curd is never heated. After the cut in the vat it is broken by hand once, sometimes twice, between pressings, and it is made only on the summer pastures. The regional sheet calls it the ancestor of the PDO Bra duro.

Rind
Smooth, dark grey-straw, darker with age
Size
Ø 25–35 cm, height 5–8 cm, 3–7 kg

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is used raw; the regional sheet sees no special hazards beyond checking the creaming, and the cheese ripens more than 35 days.

History and sources

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

The regional sheet calls it practically the only cheese made in summer on the Cuneo pastures and the ancestor of the PDO Bra duro. The ONAF sheet says the method was handed down orally, and that breaking and pressing the curd several times kept the wheels in shape through small temperature changes in mountain cellars and on the way down to market. The regional sheet lists dairy books from 1981 to 2004.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Piemonte, D.D. 24 July 2015 no. 460, Schede tecniche prodotti PAT 2015, category D product no. 22 'Nostrale d'Alpe', BU38S1 24/09/2015 (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), technical sheet "Nostrale d'Alpe"web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page "Nostrale d'Alpe" (id 465)web
  4. [dolci2008] Dolci P, et al. 2008, Microbial dynamics of Castelmagno PDO, a traditional Italian cheese, with a focus on lactic acid bacteria ecology, International Journal of Food Microbiology (abstract)paper