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Fermentation Atlas

Cheese from Levant

Akkawiعكاوي

Akkawi is a white brined cheese of the Levant, most often made from cow milk. The milk is set with rennet, the curd is drained in hoops, pressed and put into brine; fresh Akkawi is ready in one or two days. Kept longer in brine, it becomes a firmer, saltier mature cheese. Made in 6 steps over 15 days – 6.1 months. The longest step, keep cold or mature in brine, takes 14 days – 6 months (Dimassi O 2025) and runs at 4 °C (Gandhi A 2016). Salt is 10 % (Gandhi A 2016). Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, used as the starter in a lab model of Akawi does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step14 days – 6 monthsReported[dimassi2025]Keep cold or mature in brine
Temperature4 °CReported[gandhi2016]Keep cold or mature in brine
Salt10 %Reported[gandhi2016]Cure in brine
Fully documentedCheese15 days – 6.1 monthsMore other cheesesMore from Central and West Asia

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo standard recipe with amounts was found. One study made 20 kg of Akkawi from pasteurised cow milk in a pilot run.
Cow milk · Usually pasteurised; sheep or goat milk in some rural versions[dimassi2025][hussein2023]
Rennet · Microbial rennet in one documented dairy make[hassan2021]
Salt · As brine for curing and storage[hussein2023][gandhi2016]
Starter: none in one documented make; a yoghurt culture in a lab model

Total time across the recorded steps: 15 days – 6.1 months

Start
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63–72 °C

What changes: The milk is heated to kill bacteria before cheesemaking

Step 1 of 6
Pasteurise the milk
Time
30 min
Reported
Temperature
63–72 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
S. thermophilus
L. delbrueckii
Lactic acid bacteria

In one pilot make, half of the milk was skimmed and mixed back with full-fat milk, a local practice.

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

What makes this one different

Akkawi is pressed rennet curd; in one documented make, the Baladi curd was simply pressed to become Akkawi. It is traditionally not stretched, and in the same make, boiling the Akkawi blocks in water was the step that turned them into Halloum.

Moisture
56.9–61.2 % in three pilot batches

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fresh AkkawiMildly salty and elastic; keeps 2–4 weeks in refrigerated brine.
  • Mature Akkawi (Akkawi Tscheeky)Kept in brine for weeks to months; firmer and saltier.

Safety

Akkawi is often eaten without cooking. In 50 Lebanese retail samples, 80 % exceeded the Lebanese limit for E. coli and 32 % the limit for S. aureus; the authors traced the risk to failures after pasteurisation, such as hand-packing and brining, and to breaks in the cold chain. Make it from pasteurised milk with good hygiene and keep it cold.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli in 40 of 50 Lebanese retail samples (80 %); Staphylococcus aureus in 16 of 50 Lebanese retail samples (32 %).

History and sources

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

The name links the cheese to the city of Acre in historical Palestine. The name Tscheeky for the mature form comes from cheese made in Czechia by Lebanese traders for export to the Arab world.

  1. [hassan2021] Hassan H.F. et al. 2021, Investigation of the effects of some processing conditions on the fate of oxytetracycline and tylosin antibiotics in the making of commonly consumed cheeses from the East Mediterranean, Veterinary World 14(6):1644–1649paper
  2. [hussein2023] Hussein N.D. et al. 2023, Assessment of the microbiological acceptability of white cheese (Akkawi) in Lebanon and the antimicrobial resistance profiles of associated Escherichia coli, Antibiotics 12(3):610paper
  3. [dimassi2025] Dimassi O., Jaber L., Fleyfel L., Hamadeh S. 2025, Milk supply in Lebanon, economic challenges and the role of traditional dairy products, Foods 14(17):3115paper
  4. [gandhi2016] Gandhi A., Shah N.P. 2016, Salt reduction in a model high-salt Akawi cheese, Journal of Food Science 81(4):H991–H1000 (abstract)paper