Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Italy, Piemonte

Toma biellese

Cow milk, raw or less often pasteurised, is part-skimmed by leaving the evening milk to cream overnight in basins. It is set with calf rennet at 37–40 °C in 30–60 minutes, cut small, warmed to no more than 45 °C while stirred, pressed up to 12 hours and brined 24–48 hours. It ripens on wooden boards for at least about 60 days, up to 3–6 months.

Fully documentedCheese2 months – 6.1 monthsTraditional food product (PAT, Piemonte)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sheets give no fixed amounts; the rennet dose is set to give a 30–60 minute set. A cheese weighs 3.0–8.0 kg.
Cow milk, raw or less often pasteurised, part-skimmed by letting the cream riseEvening milk creamed in basins overnight, sometimes both milkings; a separator may be used instead[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Calf rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Salt (mostly brine), and salt water for wiping the rind[pat-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 months – 6.1 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Overnight in basins the cream rises off the evening milk

Step 1 of 7
Cream the evening milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The evening milk rests in basins until morning so the cream rises and is skimmed; in some cases both milkings are creamed. A centrifuge may be used instead.

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

Cow milk, raw or less often pasteurised, is part-skimmed by leaving the evening milk to cream overnight in basins. It is set with calf rennet at 37–40 °C in 30–60 minutes, cut small, warmed to no more than 45 °C while stirred, pressed up to 12 hours and brined 24–48 hours. It ripens on wooden boards for at least about 60 days, up to 3–6 months. Made in 7 steps over 2 months – 6.1 months. The longest step, ripen on boards, takes 2–6 months (Regione Piemonte 2015).

Key numbers
Main step2–6 monthsReported[pat-sheet]Ripen on boards
Temperature37–40 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Set the curd

What makes this one different

Semi-skimmed, semi-cooked pressed Biella toma with small regular eyes; melts well in cooking. The cream is skimmed by natural rising overnight, and longer-aged cheeses use two skimmed milkings.

Rind
Thin, smooth, brown-grey, darker with age
Size
3–8 kg; cylinder ø 20–35 cm, side 5–10 cm

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is usually raw. The regional sheet names the creaming of the milk as the step to control, says it sees no other unusual risks and rates the cheese medium to high for safety because of its ripening and method. It gives no pH limits or test results, so that rating is not a safety test. In a study that deliberately added low levels of E. coli O157:H7 to raw milk for Cheddar and Gouda, counts fell during ageing, but it was still detectable after selective enrichment past 270 days. The authors suggest that 60 days alone does not eliminate it in those cheeses. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity to avoid raw-milk cheeses other than cooked pressed ones such as Gruyère or Comté.

History and sources

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

The ONAF sheet says the tome cheeses of the Biella area have a long tradition. They were known locally and also sold on the Vercelli plain, often bartered for rice, wheat or other goods not grown in the mountains.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  2. [damico2010] D'Amico D.J., Druart M.J., Donnelly C.W. 2010, Behavior of Escherichia coli O157:H7 during the manufacture and aging of Gouda and stirred-curd Cheddar cheeses manufactured from raw milk, Journal of Food Protection 73:2217–2224 (abstract)paper
  3. [pat-sheet] Regione Piemonte, D.D. 24 July 2015 n. 460, Schede tecniche prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (BU 38S1, 24/09/2015), category D product 32 'Toma biellese' (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  4. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Toma biellese'web
  5. [onaf] ONAF, cheese page 'Toma biellese' (id 473)web