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Cheese from Italy, Toscana

Pecorino della Garfagnana e delle Colline LucchesiPecorino baccellone

Raw whole milk of Massese ewes is warmed to about 38 °C straight after milking and set with natural lamb rennet. The curd is broken by spino and by hand, coarse for the fresh cheese and fine for the aged one, drained in perforated moulds and left about 3 hours on poplar or chestnut boards before salting. It is sold fresh at 30 days or aged at 3 months.

Fully documentedCheese30 days – 3 monthsPAT (traditional agri-food product of Toscana)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo fixed amounts are recorded; the milk of one milking is made in a vat. Wheels weigh 700 g to 2 kg.
Raw whole ewe milk, mainly Massese breed, used straight after milking[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Natural lamb rennet (dried lamb stomach)[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
SaltRubbed on dry, or as a brine[onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 30 days – 3 months

Start
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38 °C

What changes: Fresh raw ewe milk is warmed in the vat to about 38 °C

Step 1 of 6
Warm the fresh milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: raw whole ewe 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

Raw whole milk of Massese ewes is warmed to about 38 °C straight after milking and set with natural lamb rennet. The curd is broken by spino and by hand, coarse for the fresh cheese and fine for the aged one, drained in perforated moulds and left about 3 hours on poplar or chestnut boards before salting. It is sold fresh at 30 days or aged at 3 months. Made in 6 steps over 30 days – 3 months. The longest step, ripen on poplar or chestnut boards, takes 30 days – 3 months (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)).

Key numbers
Main step30 days – 3 monthsReported[onaf-sheet]Ripen on poplar or chestnut boards
Temperature38 °CReported[pat-sheet]Warm the fresh milk

What makes this one different

A raw-milk cheese of Massese ewes where the curd is broken coarse for the 30-day cheese and fine for the 3-month one. The wheels drain on poplar or chestnut boards, which replaced fir because fir gave too strong an aroma.

Rind
Thin, slightly wrinkled; straw-yellow when fresh, dark yellow to brown when aged
Size
Round wheels about 10 cm thick, 700 g to 2 kg
Season
Made February to October; spring and autumn give the best cheeses
Output
About 600 quintals a year from the cooperative and two dairies

Related ferments

Variants

  • FrescoRipened 30 days; soft, slightly elastic rind and cream-white, slightly sour paste.
  • StagionatoRipened 3 months; hard dark yellow to brown rind and harder, saltier, slightly sharp paste.

Safety

Made from raw milk. ONAF notes the flocks are closely checked for hygiene and health. The fresh cheese is sold at 30 days and the aged one at 3 months. ANSES, the French food safety agency, says Listeria and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli in raw-milk cheeses can kill. It advises pregnant women, people with weak immunity, people over 65 and young children to avoid raw-milk cheeses, except cooked pressed cheeses such as gruyère or comté; its page does not name pecorino. It adds that raw-milk cheese well cooked, as in an oven dish, no longer poses a risk.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli O157 in raw ewe milk; in a challenge study of pecorino made by other recipes it was still detectable after 90 days of ripening.

History and sources

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

The ONAF sheet dates the first historical news of pecorino in the area to the 1600s, when it was a varied product, and says the cheese is still made by the traditional technique. Fir boards were replaced by poplar and chestnut because fir gave too strong an aroma. The name baccellone comes from eating it in spring with fresh broad beans in their pods.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Toscana (photo ARSIA), PAT sheet 'Pecorino della Garfagnana e delle Colline Lucchesi'gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Pecorino della Garfagnana e delle Colline Lucchesi'web
  3. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Pecorino della Garfagnana e delle Colline Lucchesi' (id 930)web
  4. [centorotola2021] Centorotola G., Sperandii A.F., Tucci P. et al. 2021, Survival rate of Escherichia coli O157 in artificially contaminated raw and thermized ewe milk in different Pecorino cheese production processes, International Journal of Food Microbiology 347:109175, doi:10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2021.109175 (abstract)paper
  5. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov