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Cheese from Sweden

Prästostprästost

Prästost ("priest cheese") is a Swedish hard rennet cheese of cow milk. A 1928 account describes the old farm method, in which spirits were kneaded into the curd and later used to wash the young cheese. Today it is a dairy cheese ripened for months; one brand in a 2025 study was matured 12 or 18 months.

DocumentedCheese12 months – 18 monthsFamily: Washed-curd cheese family (Gouda as template)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedOld farm method with no fixed amounts; modern dairy recipes are not published.
Fresh cow milk[doane1928]
Rennet[doane1928]
Whisky or other spiritsMixed into the curd and used to wash the cheese in the old method; brännvin or cognac, and sometimes caraway, cloves or cinnamon, in farm tradition[doane1928][skanemejerier2009]
SaltSprinkled on the surface in the old method[doane1928]
StarterSwedish Wikipedia, citing Swahn's book on Swedish food traditions, says the old vicarage cheese was made by adding older, soured curd to the milk. The 1928 account names rennet only. The starter of modern Prästost is not published.

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 months – 18 months

Start
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32 °CMilk proteinGel (curd)

What changes: Rennet sets fresh cow milk into a very firm curd

Step 1 of 6
Set fresh milk with rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
32 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
allowed to set very firm
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

Prästost ("priest cheese") is a Swedish hard rennet cheese of cow milk. A 1928 account describes the old farm method, in which spirits were kneaded into the curd and later used to wash the young cheese. Today it is a dairy cheese ripened for months; one brand in a 2025 study was matured 12 or 18 months. Made in 6 steps over 12 months – 18 months. The longest step, ripen, takes 12–18 months (Skånemejerier 2009).

Key numbers
Main step12–18 monthsReported[skanemejerier2009][hirtz2025]Ripen
Temperature32 °CReported[doane1928]Set fresh milk with rennet

What makes this one different

In the old method Prästost was kneaded with spirits and washed with them after three days. Modern Prästost is a long-ripened dairy cheese, often a year old. A 2025 sensory study says Prästost gets its many small holes in the presence of air as the whey is drained, while Grevé and Herrgård are pressed under the whey.

Milk
Cow milk
Fat
Sold in Sweden at 28% and 31% fat
Shape
Cylindrical, 5–30 pounds (1928)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Old farm PrästostSpirits kneaded into the curd and used to wash the cheese
  • Allerum PrästDairy cheese of the Allerum brand, matured 12 or 18 months in a 2025 study

History and sources

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

Swedish Wikipedia, citing Swahn, says the first printed use of the word prästost was in Dagligt Allehanda, that tithe cheeses from Småland were made from whole milk, sometimes with cream, and were not granular-eyed like today's cheese, that the first granular-eyed cheeses were made on a Swiss model at Marsvinsholm in Skåne in 1786, and that the technique spread to Västergötland around 1820. The 1928 US bulletin says the cheese was known in the 18th century. A Swedish dairy traces it to the 1500s, when farmers gave their best cheeses to the parish priest as tithe, often made at midsummer; it says the name was first printed in 1771 and that the tithe ended in 1862, after which farm wives kept giving priests home-made cheese until dairies took over.

  1. [doane1928] Doane C.F., Lawson H.W., revised by Matheson K.J. 1928, Varieties of cheese, descriptions and analyses, USDA Bulletin 608 (Prestost)archive
  2. [atiya2011] Atiya Ali M., Poortvliet E., Strömberg R., Yngve A. 2011, Polyamines in foods, development of a food database, Food & Nutrition Research 55:5572paper
  3. [bottari2018] Bottari B., Levante A., Neviani E., Gatti M. 2018, How the fewest become the greatest, L. casei's impact on long ripened cheeses, Frontiers in Microbiology 9:2866paper
  4. [hirtz2025] Hirtz J., Douraquia K., Jönsson M., Wendin K. 2025, Taste of Tradition, Perceptual Quality Aspects and Future Prospects of Three Swedish Classic Cheeses, Food Science and Nutrition 13(9):e70913paper
  5. [skanemejerier2009] Skånemejerier 2009, press information "Svensk Präst tar plats på julbordet", Kristianstad, 18 November 2009 (with a note on the history of prästost)web
  6. [svwiki-prastost] Swedish Wikipedia, Prästost (outline; cites Swahn J.-Ö., Fil, fläsk och falukorv, Svenska mattraditioner genom tiderna, pp. 74-76)wiki