Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Croatia

Sir iz mišine (cheese ripened in a lamb-skin sack)sir iz mišine

Raw sheep or cow milk is set with rennet at 32–33 °C, cut and heated to 38–39 °C, and the curd is gathered by hand, drained in sieves, cut, salted and packed into a sack made from a whole lamb or goat skin. Sealed in the skin, it ripens without air, typically 30–45 days and traditionally two or three months, into a hard, sharp cheese.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedOne study made cheese from 80 l of mixed evening and morning milk; no recipe gives fixed doses.
Raw sheep milk (Dalmatian Pramenka sheep in one study) or raw cow milk[kostelac2020][frece2016]
Rennet[kostelac2020]
Sea salt[kostelac2020]
A sack made from the whole skin of a lamb or goat[tudorkalit2010][kostelac2020]
Starternone traditionally; the milk is acidified by its natural microflora (Kostelac 2020)

Total time across the recorded steps: 45 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactococcus lactisLactobacillus paracaseiL. mesenteroidesLactobacillus plantarum32–33 °C

What changes: Rennet goes into warm raw sheep milk

Step 1 of 5
Warm the milk and add rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
32–33 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
Lactobacillus paracasei
L. mesenteroides
Lactobacillus plantarum
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 sheep or cow milk is set with rennet at 32–33 °C, cut and heated to 38–39 °C, and the curd is gathered by hand, drained in sieves, cut, salted and packed into a sack made from a whole lamb or goat skin. Sealed in the skin, it ripens without air, typically 30–45 days and traditionally two or three months, into a hard, sharp cheese. Made in 5 steps over 45 days. The longest step, ripen in the sack, takes 45 days (Kostelac D 2020) and runs at 14–16 °C (Kostelac D 2020). Salt is 4 % (Kostelac D 2020). Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus paracasei in cow-milk cheese; Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus plantarum in sheep-milk cheese and in the sacks does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step45 daysReported[kostelac2020][tudorkalit2014][tudorkalit2010][sesar2022]Ripen in the sack
Temperature14–16 °CReported[kostelac2020]Ripen in the sack
Salt4 %Reported[kostelac2020]Ripen in the sack
AciditypH 5Reported[kostelac2020]Ripen in the sack

What makes this one different

Ripened sealed inside a whole lamb or goat skin rather than in a rind. A study found the cheese in a sack had less total solids, fat, protein and salt, and more intensive proteolysis, than the same cheese ripened in a rind.

Composition
Croatian cheese is around 62 % dry matter, 24 % protein, 53 % fat in dry matter and 4 % salt (as cited in a 2020 study)
Ripening
45 days is called the optimal ripening time (Sesar 2022); a 2014 study does not recommend more than 45 days

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk without starter. One survey found staphylococci and enterobacteria above the limits in most samples and enterotoxin in two sheep cheeses; adding native lactic cultures has been tested to improve the cheese.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococci and enterobacteria above the legal limits in two thirds of milk, curd and cheese samples; Escherichia coli in sheep milk and cheese; staphylococcal enterotoxin in two sheep cheeses; no Salmonella or Listeria monocytogenes.

History and sources

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

Cheeses ripened in skin sacks are made in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Turkey, with small differences in method. Frece et al. (2016) trace the Croatian sack cheese to the time when Illyrians and Thracians herded sheep on the pastures of Dinara Mountain and used sheepskin sacks to carry cheese down to the valley settlements. When they sampled it in 2013, about ten small producers made it around Knin.

  1. [kostelac2020] Kostelac D., Vrdoljak M., Markov K. et al. 2020, SPME-GC-MS and Multivariate Analysis of Sensory Properties of Cheese in a Sack Matured with Probiotic Starter Cultures, Food Technology and Biotechnology 58(2):128–137paper
  2. [frece2016] Frece J., Vrdoljak M., Filipčić M. et al. 2016, Microbiological Quality and Variability of Natural Microbiota in Croatian Cheese Maturing in Lambskin Sacks, Food Technology and Biotechnology 54(2):129–134paper
  3. [tudorkalit2014] Tudor Kalit M., Kalit S., Delaš I. et al. 2014, Changes in the composition and sensory properties of Croatian cheese in a lamb skin sack (Sir iz mišine) during ripening, International Journal of Dairy Technology 67(2):255–264 (abstract)paper
  4. [tudorkalit2010] Tudor Kalit M., Kalit S., Havranek J. 2010, An overview of researches on cheeses ripening in animal skin, Mljekarstvo 60:149–155 (abstract)paper
  5. [kalit2012] Tudor Kalit M., Kalit S., Kelava N., Havranek J. 2012, Physicochemical differences between Croatian cheese matured in a lamb skin sack (Sir iz misine) and cheese matured in a rind throughout ripening, International Journal of Dairy Technology 65(4):555–560 (abstract)paper
  6. [sesar2022] Sesar A., Drmać M., Landeka V., Golić B. et al. 2022, Mikrobiološka ispravnost i fizikalno-kemijski parametri kvaliteta kozjih i ovčijih sireva iz Hercegovine, Veterinarski žurnal Republike Srpske 22(1-2):57–67paper