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Cheese from Portugal, Azores

Queijo do PicoQueijo de São João do Pico

A cheese of raw cow milk from Pico island, made by a traditional, labour-intensive method. Rennet sets the milk, the curd is cut, pressed into moulds by hand and salted on each side. It ripens for a short time, about 20 days at around 10 °C, and keeps a pH near 5.0 and a high water activity.

Fully documentedCheese20 daysPDO (EU, Regulation (EC) 1265/98; file PDO-PT-0035)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

Queijo do Pico, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Adriao, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedNo source read gives a farm batch. In a 2025 study that followed the traditional protocol, 10 L of raw milk were set with 0.15 g of commercial rennet per litre.
Raw cow milk from Pico island[camara2025]
Rennet[camara2025]
SaltApplied to each side of the moulded cheese[camara2025]

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw cow milk from Pico island

Step 1 of 6
Start with raw cow milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Enterococcus
Lactobacillus
Leuconostoc citreum
Lactococcus lactis
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

A cheese of raw cow milk from Pico island, made by a traditional, labour-intensive method. Rennet sets the milk, the curd is cut, pressed into moulds by hand and salted on each side. It ripens for a short time, about 20 days at around 10 °C, and keeps a pH near 5.0 and a high water activity. Made in 6 steps over 20 days. The longest step, ripen, takes 20 days (Câmara S.P.A 2025) and runs at 10 °C (Câmara S.P.A 2025). Enterococcus, the genus most often identified by 16S rRNA among 114 lactic isolates at 1 and 21 days and Lactobacillus, the genus the API system identified most often do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step20 daysReported[camara2025]Ripen
Temperature10 °CReported[camara2025]Ripen
AciditypH 5Reported[camara2025]Ripen

What makes this one different

A raw cow-milk cheese shaped and salted by hand and ripened only about 20 days, so its pH and water activity stay high compared with long-aged cheeses.

Composition
pH near 5.0 and water activity 0.943–0.966 at the end of its short ripening

Related ferments

Safety

This is a raw-milk cheese with a pH near 5.0 and water activity of 0.943–0.966. The authors of a 2025 study cite the US FDA's rule that a food is intrinsically safe below pH 4.2 and at a water activity of 0.920 or less, which they say protects about like pasteurisation but is not feasible in Pico cheese. In that study, coagulase-positive staphylococci in model Pico cheeses were not controlled by more salt or by ripening up to 60 days. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than pressed cooked ones such as Gruyère, because of Listeria, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. coli.

Hazards the sources name: Coagulase-positive staphylococci, the main hygiene issue; not brought under control by more salt or by ripening up to 60 days in model cheeses.

History and sources

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

The EU registered the name in 1998.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [domingos2017] Domingos-Lopes M.F.P., Stanton C., Ross P.R., Dapkevicius M.L.E., Silva C.C.G. 2017, Genetic diversity, safety and technological characterization of lactic acid bacteria isolated from artisanal Pico cheese, Food Microbiology 63:178–190 (abstract)paper
  2. [camara2025] Câmara S.P.A., Maduro Dias C., Nunes H.P.B. et al. 2025, Addressing quality, safety, and sustainability challenges in artisanal Pico cheese production - proteolysis indexes, staphylococci, and whey valorization, Foods 14(9):1487paper
  3. [eambrosia] European Commission, eAmbrosia register, «Queijo do Pico» (PDO-PT-0035, EUGI00000013436; Regulation (EC) 1265/98)gov
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov