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Cheese from Georgia

Sulguniსულგუნი

Sulguni is a Georgian stretched-curd cheese of cow, buffalo or goat milk. Renneted curd is drained and left to sour for 2–24 hours, then sliced into very hot water, stretched, folded and shaped. It is salted in brine for 6–24 hours or with dry salt and eaten fresh, dried or smoked.

Fully documentedCheese8.1 h – 4 daysGeorgian geographical indication (Sulguni, registration no. 10, 24 January 2012)Family: Pasta filata (stretched-curd) cheese family

Recipe

Sulguni, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Jonathan Cardy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedTraditional and dairy cheese with no fixed batch size; the specification sets temperatures, times and salt, not amounts.
Cow, buffalo or goat milk, or a mixRaw or pasteurised, whole or standardised; milk powder is not allowed; Sulguni Classic uses fresh raw whole milk[sulguni-gi]
Animal or microbial rennet[sulguni-gi]
Lactic starter (optional)Not allowed in Sulguni Classic[sulguni-gi]
SaltDry on the surface, or as a 14–22 % brine[sulguni-gi]
Mint, tarragon, savory, adjika, honey, wine, chacha or nutsoptionalGeorgian ingredients only, kneaded in or added after[sulguni-gi]
Starternone allowed in Sulguni Classic (the specification bars a lacto-bacterial starter); an optional starter in other types

Total time across the recorded steps: 8.1 h – 4 days

Start
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32–39 °C

What changes: Rennet goes into milk warmed to 32–39 °C and it sets into a curd

Step 1 of 5
Warm the milk and add rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
32–39 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: firm curd.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

rennet sets the milk; Sulguni Classic is made without a starter

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

Sulguni is a Georgian stretched-curd cheese of cow, buffalo or goat milk. Renneted curd is drained and left to sour for 2–24 hours, then sliced into very hot water, stretched, folded and shaped. It is salted in brine for 6–24 hours or with dry salt and eaten fresh, dried or smoked. Made in 5 steps over 8.1 h – 4 days. The longest step, salt in brine or with dry salt, takes 6 h – 3 days (Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agri…). Salt is 14–22 % (Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agri…).

Key numbers
Main step6 h – 3 daysSet[sulguni-gi]Salt in brine or with dry salt
Temperature32–39 °CSet[sulguni-gi]Warm the milk and add rennet
Salt14–22 %Set[sulguni-gi]Salt in brine or with dry salt

What makes this one different

Like other pasta filata cheeses, sulguni is stretched in hot water once its curd has soured for hours. It is shaped as a low, rindless round of up to 2.2 kg and brined for up to a day, and the Classic version uses raw milk with no starter.

Milk
Cow, buffalo or goat milk or a mix; raw or pasteurised
Ripening
Fresh, sold from 24 hours after salting; may be dried for days or weeks
Size
Low cylinder of 0.25–2.2 kg, 7–30 cm across and 2–7 cm high
pH (suluguni-like cheese from Russia)
pH 5 and 5.5 in three suluguni-like cheeses sampled in Russia; a related product, not Georgian sulguni
Salt (Megruli sulguni)
1–5 % salt, at most 50 % moisture

Related ferments

Variants

  • Megruli sulguni (Georgian GI no. 9)Samegrelo only; 15–20 cm, 0.5–1.5 kg; milk set at 30–35 °C, curd reheated to 34–37 °C with 70–80 % of the whey removed, soured to 140–150 °T and stretched at 75–80 °C; brined at 17–18 % and 8–12 °C.
  • Shebolili (smoked) sulguniSmoked over non-coniferous wood (pear, apple, alder, beech, quince), hot for 1–12 hours or cold for 72 hours to a week. Golden-brown outside, slightly saltier; Megruli shebolili has at most 40 % moisture and 3–5 % salt.
  • Dried sulguniDried for days or weeks on wooden shelves in a dry, airy place.
  • Svanuri sulguni (Georgian GI no. 11)Made in the Lentekhi and Mestia municipalities of Svaneti, from cow or goat milk or a mix, as irregular cheeses of 2–6 kg; registered separately.

Safety

The specification allows raw or pasteurised milk, and Sulguni Classic uses fresh raw milk. The CDC says people at higher risk, including pregnant women, people 65 or older and people with weak immunity, should avoid raw-milk cheese unless it is heated to 165 °F (74 °C) or until steaming hot.

History and sources

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

A 2014 Georgian study argues that sulguni is a Colchian (West Georgian) product and that kneading and boiling the curd was due to the region's excessive humidity (Topchishvili). It was registered as a Georgian geographical indication on 24 January 2012, with Megruli and Svanuri sulguni as separate registrations. The specification cites a 17th-century dictionary by Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani as the earliest written evidence of the cheese in Samegrelo and Svaneti.

  1. [sulguni-gi] Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia, Sulguni, registered in Georgia as a geographical indication no. 10 (24 January 2012), specification as listed under the UK-Georgia agreementspec
  2. [megruli-gi] Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia, Megruli Sulguni, registered in Georgia as a geographical indication no. 9 (24 January 2012), specification as listed under the UK-Georgia agreementspec
  3. [svanuri-gi] Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia, Svanuri Sulguni, registered in Georgia as a geographical indication no. 11 (24 January 2012), specification as listed under the UK-Georgia agreementspec
  4. [elcheninov2023] Elcheninov A.G., Zayulina K.S., Klyukina A.A., Kremneva M.K., Kublanov I.V., Kochetkova T.V. 2023, Metagenomic insights into the taxonomic and functional features of traditional fermented milk products from Russia, Microorganisms 12(1):16, doi:10.3390/microorganisms12010016paper
  5. [kochetkova2022] Kochetkova T.V. et al. 2022, Microbial communities of artisanal fermented milk products from Russia, Microorganisms 10(11):2140, doi:10.3390/microorganisms10112140paper
  6. [tsu-dspace] Topchishvili R. 2014, From the diet history of the Georgians: suluguni (abstract), Proceedings of the Institute of Georgian History VIII, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, pp. 314-330paper
  7. [cdc-listeria] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infectiongov