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Cheese from Portugal, Beira Baixa

Queijo Picante da Beira BaixaQueijo da Beira Baixa, tipo Picante

Raw ewe or goat milk, in any mix, is set with animal rennet at 27–36 °C, cut with a cheese harp, pressed in hoops and salted heavily, often in stages. The cheeses are then stacked under salt in a 'castelo' for 2–3 weeks and laid on edge on beds of rye straw, curing for at least 120 days. The result is a rindless, hard, greyish cheese that is very salty and sharp.

Fully documentedCheese4.4 months – 4.6 monthsPDO (DOP, one of the three types of Queijo da Beira Baixa); registered 1996 by Reg. (EC) No 1107/96 as Queijos da Beira Baixa, amended and renamed by Reg. (EU) 2021/245Family: Hard pressed ewe cheese family (Manchego and Pecorino Romano as templates)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceFarm-scale making with no fixed amounts. A cheese weighs 0.4–1 kg, 10–15 cm across.
Raw ewe milk0–100 % of the milkMerino or other breeds adapted to the region[oj-2020]
Raw goat milk0–100 % of the milkCharnequeiro or other breeds adapted to the region[oj-2020]
Animal rennet[oj-2020]
SaltApplied heavily, once or in several stages, and again to cover the curing stack[oj-2020]
Rye strawBedding for the curing stacks[oj-2020]

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.4 months – 4.6 months

Start
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up to 6 °C

What changes: Starting material: raw ewe or goat milk, alone or mixed

Step 1 of 6
Work the milk straight after milking
Time
Not documented
Temperature
up to 6 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus plantarum
Enterococcus faecium
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Output: raw ewe and/or goat 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 ewe or goat milk, in any mix, is set with animal rennet at 27–36 °C, cut with a cheese harp, pressed in hoops and salted heavily, often in stages. The cheeses are then stacked under salt in a 'castelo' for 2–3 weeks and laid on edge on beds of rye straw, curing for at least 120 days. The result is a rindless, hard, greyish cheese that is very salty and sharp. Made in 6 steps over 4.4 months – 4.6 months. The longest step, cure on rye straw, takes at least 3.9 months (European Commission 2020). Lactobacillus plantarum and L. paracasei and Enterococcus faecium, E. faecalis and E. durans do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 3.9 monthsSet[oj-2020]Cure on rye straw
Temperatureup to 6 °CSet[oj-2020]Work the milk straight after milking

What makes this one different

Picante is highly salted, cured in a salt-covered stack and then on rye straw, and must age at least 120 days. It has no rind and may be made from goat milk alone.

Milk
Raw ewe and/or goat milk in any proportion
Composition
Moisture 49–63 % of the fat-free cheese; fat 35–60 % of dry matter
Size
0.4–1 kg; 10–15 cm across, 3–5 cm high; straight smooth sides

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk and cured at least 120 days. A survey of 98 raw-milk cheeses from Beira Baixa makers found Listeria monocytogenes in 4.1 % of them and linked contamination to lapses in hygiene. 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: Listeria monocytogenes (4.1 % of 98 retail raw-milk cheeses from Beira Baixa, all types).

History and sources

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

The 2020 amendment describes the salt-stack and rye-straw curing of Picante as ancient techniques employed at local level and wrote them into the specification. The three Beira Baixa types were registered together as a PDO in 1996 by Regulation (EC) No 1107/96, and Regulation (EU) 2021/245 of 11 February 2021 approved the 2020 amendment.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [oj-2020] European Commission 2020, Publication of an application for approval of an amendment, 'Queijo da Beira Baixa' (PDO-PT-0214-AM02), single document, Official Journal of the EU C 315, 23 September 2020, p. 3spec
  2. [freitas1996] Freitas A.C., Pais C., Malcata F.X., Hogg T.A. 1996, Microbiological characterization of Picante da Beira Baixa cheese, Journal of Food Protection 59(2):155–160 (abstract)paper
  3. [pereira2026] Pereira C.D., Campos L., Veiga A., Pereira-Dias S., Henriques M. 2026, Role of cardoon (Cynara spp.) and raw milk microbiota in Iberian PDO and PGI small ruminants' milk cheeses, Foods 15(13):2359 (review)paper
  4. [mendonca2024] Mendonça R., Furtado R., Coelho A., Correia C.B., Suyarko E., Borges V., Gomes J.P., Pista A., Batista R. 2024, Raw milk cheeses from Beira Baixa, Portugal - a contributive study for the microbiological hygiene and safety assessment, Brazilian Journal of Microbiology 55(2):1759–1772paper
  5. [reg-2021] European Commission 2021, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/245 approving non-minor amendments to the specification for 'Queijos da Beira Baixa' (PDO), Official Journal of the EU L 57, 18 February 2021, pp. 80–81spec
  6. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov