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What is a raw milk cheese?

visibility102614 Views comment0 comments person Posted By: Emmanuel Poulet-Harmel list In: Blog of gourmets
What is a raw milk cheese?
What is a raw milk cheese?
The difference between a raw milk cheese and a pasteurized or thermized milk cheese is that raw milk cheeses are made, as their name suggests, from unheated milk.
It is a milk that could be described as living because this absence of heating makes it possible to preserve the micro-organisms present naturally in the milk after the milking of the animals.
It can be said that each breeder has distinct microbial balances in their raw milk, which of course change with the seasons.
To give you an idea, the analysis of 400 milks, used in the manufacture of 44 matured PDO cheeses, made it possible to identify 1410 different bacterial species in the samples.
On average, raw milk can contain 200 to 240 different species of bacteria.
It is these microorganisms which, as they develop, contribute to the development of complex and diversified aromas in the cheese paste and rind.
But it should be added that the taste of cheeses is not only linked to the composition of the milk. It is also linked to the nature of the ferments used, to the salt, to the ripening and to the work of the cheese maker.
But this initial microflora from raw milk contributes to the unique character and typicality of raw milk cheeses. They reflect their terroir.
Quality cheeses are thus obtained, with non-standardised tastes.
How to recognize a raw milk cheese?
It's easy, it's marked on it.
The information is noted on the labels. You can see it for example on this Camembert label (in red on the left).
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