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Cheese from Italy, Campania

Scamorza di Montella

Raw whole cow milk is set with liquid calf rennet at 36–38 °C, and the curd is broken to olive size and semi-cooked to 42–45 °C with whey heated to 60 °C. It ripens under the whey for 2–4 hours until a stretching test works, then is sliced, stretched with boiling water and shaped by hand into a cylinder with a head. Tied in pairs with raffia, it is cooled, brined and hung in a cold room.

Fully documentedCheese10 days – 2 monthsPAT (traditional agri-food product, Campania)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give the method, not doses or batch sizes. The classic scamorza weighs about 600 g.
Raw whole cow milkBruna cows; two milkings kept at 5–7 °C (ONAF)[campania-pat][onaf-sheet]
Liquid calf rennet[campania-pat][onaf-sheet]
Salt, as brine[campania-pat][onaf-sheet]
RaffiaTo tie the scamorze in pairs for hanging[campania-pat][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 10 days – 2 months

Start
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36–38 °C

What changes: Calf rennet goes into the raw milk and sets it at 36–38 °C

Step 1 of 7
Set with calf rennet
Time
40 min
Reported
Temperature
36–38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: curd.

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 cow milk is set with liquid calf rennet at 36–38 °C, and the curd is broken to olive size and semi-cooked to 42–45 °C with whey heated to 60 °C. It ripens under the whey for 2–4 hours until a stretching test works, then is sliced, stretched with boiling water and shaped by hand into a cylinder with a head. Tied in pairs with raffia, it is cooled, brined and hung in a cold room. Made in 7 steps over 10 days – 2 months. The longest step, hang in a cold room, takes 10 days – 2 months (ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters)).

Key numbers
Main step10 days – 2 monthsReported[onaf-sheet]Hang in a cold room
Temperature36–38 °CReported[campania-pat][onaf-sheet]Set with calf rennet

What makes this one different

A raw-milk stretched-curd cheese whose curd is semi-cooked to 42–45 °C with whey heated to 60 °C, then ripens 2–4 hours under the whey before stretching. About 600 g and tied in pairs, it keeps a long time like a caciocavallo.

Rind
Fresh, a thin white skin; aged, a pale to deep straw skin
Size
Cylinder with a clear head, like a baby; classic weight about 600 g, sometimes smaller
Composition
Protein 18–19%, fat 25% as sold, fat in dry matter 48–49%
Season
Made all year

Related ferments

Variants

  • FrescoEaten at once or within a few weeks; thin white skin
  • Semi-stagionatoKept up to a few months; harder straw-yellow skin, ivory paste

Safety

Made from raw milk. Stretching uses boiling water, and the cheese is brined and kept in a cold room, but the sheets do not show that these steps remove pathogens. 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 or Comté, because of Listeria, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. coli.

Hazards the sources name: In 52 lots of related raw-milk Caciocavallo, Scamorza and Caciotta cheeses from two dairies, enterococcal isolates carrying virulence genes.

History and sources

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

The Campania sheet cites 1950s photographs of the old Granese dairy of Montella making scamorze and plaits, and medals it won in 1925 and 1932.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  2. [delmatto2021] Del Matto I, Rossi F, Iannitto G, Petrone D, Mastrodomenico MT, Alessiani A, Sacchini L, Amadoro C, Tucci P, Marino L (2021), Variability of the microbiota in traditional Caciocavallo, Scamorza and Caciotta cheeses manufactured with raw milk and natural cultures, International Journal of Dairy Technology 74(3) (abstract)paper
  3. [campania-pat] Regione Campania, Assessorato Agricoltura, Prodotti tradizionali 'Scamorza di Montella' (web page, updated August 2017; print copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  4. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Scamorza di Montella'web