Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Italy, Veneto

Formaggio pecorino fresco di malga

Hand-milked raw ewe milk is filtered through linen, warmed to 38.5 °C in a tinned copper cauldron and set with powdered calf rennet. The curd is broken to lentil size, semi-cooked at 41 °C, crumbled and squeezed by hand into moulds under weights, unmoulded after 12 hours and brined at least 24 hours. It is eaten young, at about 15 days.

Fully documentedCheese17 daysPAT (traditional agri-food product of Veneto)Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo fixed amounts are recorded. Wheels weigh 2–2.5 kg.
Raw whole ewe milk, hand-milked and filtered through linen cloths[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Powdered calf rennet, mixed with a little water[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt (brine)[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 17 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
38.5 °C

What changes: Linen-filtered ewe milk is warmed to 38.5 °C in a copper cauldron

Step 1 of 7
Warm the milk in a tinned copper cauldron
Time
Not documented
Temperature
38.5 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactococcus lactis
Enterococcus faecium
Lactobacillus plantarum

The tin lining keeps the milk from heating too fast. Output: warm raw 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

Hand-milked raw ewe milk is filtered through linen, warmed to 38.5 °C in a tinned copper cauldron and set with powdered calf rennet. The curd is broken to lentil size, semi-cooked at 41 °C, crumbled and squeezed by hand into moulds under weights, unmoulded after 12 hours and brined at least 24 hours. It is eaten young, at about 15 days. Made in 7 steps over 17 days. The longest step, ripen briefly, takes 15 days (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)). Lactic acid bacteria and enterococci, mainly Lactococcus lactis ssp. lactis, Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus plantarum and the Lactobacillus casei group, as found in Fiore Sardo, a related raw ewe-milk cheese of Sardinia made without starter does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step15 daysReported[onaf-sheet]Ripen briefly
Temperature38.5 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Warm the milk in a tinned copper cauldron

What makes this one different

A summer-only fresh pecorino of the Asiago plateau dairies. Its warm curd is crumbled and squeezed by hand, then packed under lead weights, and it is eaten at about 15 days.

Rind
Thin, soft, smooth, white-straw
Size
Cylinder about 22 cm across and 8 cm high
Season
Made only in the summer grazing season, June to September

Related ferments

Safety

A raw-milk cheese eaten young, at about 15 days. The sheets describe hand milking through linen filters, brining for at least 24 hours and any short storage in cool, humid rooms. CDC says eating products made from raw milk can expose people to germs. Its Listeria guidance tells pregnant women, newborns, adults 65 and over and people with weakened immune systems to avoid any cheese made from raw milk unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

Hazards the sources name: Coliforms and staphylococci, which peaked at 48 h of ripening and fell below 2 log cfu/g by 3 months in the related Fiore Sardo (not measured in this cheese).

History and sources

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

Old cheeses of the plateau were called pegurin. The ONAF sheet quotes a 1999 study of sheep and goat farming in Veneto, which says that until the early 1800s Veneto ewes were milked for about four months after the lambs were raised. Historical and bibliographic research and producers' statements, the sheet says, show it has been made by the same traditional method for decades.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Veneto, Atlante dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali del Veneto, sheet 'Formaggio pecorino fresco di malga' (p. 162)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Formaggio pecorino fresco di malga'web
  3. [pisano2006] Pisano M.B., Fadda M.E., Deplano M., Corda A., Cosentino S. 2006, Microbiological and chemical characterization of Fiore Sardo, a traditional Sardinian cheese made from ewe's milk, International Journal of Dairy Technology 59(3):171-179, doi:10.1111/j.1471-0307.2006.00260.x (abstract)paper
  4. [cdc-raw-milk] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw Milk (31 January 2025)gov
  5. [cdc-listeria] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infectiongov