Soft cheese
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Soft cheese is cheese whose water content in the fat-free cheese mass is more than 67%. Soft cheese can be made from pasteurized milk, thermized milk and raw milk . Soft cheese made from raw milk is subject to particularly strict hygiene requirements under EU law .
The maturation of the soft cheese proceeds from the outside in. Ripening takes place faster at higher temperatures. The more mature the cheese, the more it gets its typical creamy-soft consistency. Usually they only show a soft consistency with increasing maturity, whereby a firm core in the interior of the dough is often only gradually lost.
The surface of soft cheese is often treated with a mushroom culture. This usually leads to the formation of a typical white layer of mold . The surface flora of soft cheese with smear is mainly treated with Brevibacterium linens and is therefore more or less moist. With the introduction of Penicillium candidum , the mold culture known today as Camembert mold was bred. When it comes to soft cheeses, a distinction is made between: soft cheese with red smear and soft cheese with mold, which is later covered by a layer of white mold . The cheeses with the red cheese flora, called red smear cheese, have a yellowish to red-brown exterior. With some of them, white mold grows after a while through the red smear surface; a closed white mold layer forms, e.g. B. at Rougette. The penetration of light gray, small spots does not affect the quality of the cheese. If light red spots appear on camembert-like cheese, this is a sign that the cheese dough has matured. Soft cheeses with blue mold in the batter usually have a white mold coating and have a milder taste than semi-hard cheeses with blue or noble mold . They are often called white and blue cheese.
Well-known varieties : Brie , Camembert , Coulommiers , Gorgonzola , Vacherin Mont-d'Or
literature
- Heinrich G. Neuhaus: Cheeses from Europe. Stuttgart 1992: Matthaes.
