Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Greece, eastern Crete

Xygalo Siteias PDOΞύγαλο Σητείας

Goat and/or sheep milk, raw or pasteurised, is salted, cooled to 25 °C and left untouched in covered tubs for 7 to 10 days while its own bacteria sour it. After the fat is skimmed it ripens about a month at 10–15 °C, is separated from its whey and is kept cold as a sour, white, spreadable cheese.

Fully documentedCheese37 days – 40 daysPDO (EU, Implementing Regulation (EU) No 766/2011)Family: Fresh lactic (acid-set) cheese family

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe specification describes the method but gives no fixed batch. The finished cheese is packed in food-grade containers of at most 5 kg.
Goat and/or sheep milkFrom animals at least 10 days after giving birth; the sheep milk's fat is adjusted so the cheese stays under 46 % fat in dry matter[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]
SaltUp to 2% of the milk weight[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]
Harmless acidic bacterial cultures, mainly yogurt cultures (Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus)Optional under the PDO; the traditional method uses none[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]
Natural rennet from lambs' stomachs (tirephtis)Small amounts, mainly with pasteurised milk; 3–4 g per tonne of liquid rennet in one industrial method[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]
Starterthe milk's own lactic flora (traditional); yogurt cultures allowed, mainly with pasteurised milk

Total time across the recorded steps: 37 days – 40 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: goat and sheep milk from local Cretan flocks, chilled or taken straight to the dairy

Step 1 of 8
Collect and chill the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
S. thermophilus
Lactobacillus bulgaricus

Goat milk, sheep milk, or a mix of both if goat milk is short, with the sheep milk's fat adjusted. The milk is taken to the dairy by the farmer or chilled in milk chillers and collected often.

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

Goat and/or sheep milk, raw or pasteurised, is salted, cooled to 25 °C and left untouched in covered tubs for 7 to 10 days while its own bacteria sour it. After the fat is skimmed it ripens about a month at 10–15 °C, is separated from its whey and is kept cold as a sour, white, spreadable cheese. Made in 8 steps over 37 days – 40 days. The longest step, ripen in the same containers, takes 30 days (Single Document for the PDO Ξύγαλο Σητείας (X…) and runs at 10–15 °C (Single Document for the PDO Ξύγαλο Σητείας (X…). Salt is up to 2 % (Single Document for the PDO Ξύγαλο Σητείας (X…). Native lactic acid bacteria of the milk and Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus from yogurt cultures do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step30 daysSet[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]Ripen in the same containers
Temperature10–15 °CSet[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]Ripen in the same containers
Saltup to 2 %Set[xygalo-oj][lapidakis2022]Cool and salt the milk
AciditypH 4.1Reported[lapidakis2022]Keep cold

What makes this one different

Xygalo is soured slowly and left unstirred in its containers through souring and ripening, and the fat is skimmed off, so its fat in dry matter (33–46 %) is lower than Pichtogalo Chanion's (at least 50 %). Pichtogalo, by contrast, sours for only 24 hours before it is drained and salted.

Milk
Goat and/or sheep milk of local breeds, raw or pasteurised
Composition
At most 75% moisture and 1.5% salt; 33–46% fat in dry matter; at least 31.5% protein in dry matter
Ripening
7–10 days souring, then about one month at 10–15 °C

Related ferments

Variants

  • Traditional xygaloRaw milk with no added culture or rennet, made in summer when warm weather helps it sour; drained by housewives or traditional cheesemakers in clay pots (kouroupi) turned gently upside down to let the whey out.

Safety

When raw milk is used, the specification keeps the cheese refrigerated for at least two months before sale, with the stated aim that its own flora counteracts pathogens and checks can show it is free of undesirable microbes. It must stay below 4 °C. A bachelor's thesis quoted in a 2022 review followed fresh cheese from two factories for 6 weeks. E. coli peaked in week 3, at a mean of 210 CFU/100 mL in the factory with a HACCP system and 1,100 in the one without, and was not detected in week 6. The review says this and its cause remain to be verified.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli (in a bachelor's thesis on two factories, quoted in a review; peaked in week 3 of storage, not detected by week 6, still to be verified).

History and sources

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

The name comes from the ancient Greek oxygala, "acid milk", and Lapidakis and Fragkiadakis (2022) say the production method goes back to Hellenistic and Roman times. It stayed an artisanal product for centuries, made at first only in summer, when goat and sheep milk was scarce and too little for hard cheese. The PDO file gives a written reference to xygalo as a Siteia product from 1957 and the first modern milk-processing unit in the area in the 1970s. It was first marketed as an industrial product at the beginning of the 1990s. The name was entered in the EU register as a PDO by Regulation (EU) No 766/2011 of 29 July 2011.

  1. [xygalo-oj] Single Document for the PDO Ξύγαλο Σητείας (Xygalo Siteias), Official Journal of the European Union C 312/25, 17.11.2010spec
  2. [reg766] Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 766/2011 of 29 July 2011 entering a name in the register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications [Xygalo Siteias (PDO)], Official Journal L 200, 3.8.2011, p. 12spec
  3. [lapidakis2022] Lapidakis N., Fragkiadakis G.A. 2022, Dairy processing, the soft spreadable cheese Xygalo Siteias, Processes 10(1):80, doi:10.3390/pr10010080 (read from the Hellenic Mediterranean University copy)paper