Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Fermentation Atlas

Cheese from France, Jura massif

Comté PDOComté

Raw cow milk from farms within a 25 km circle is warmed, seeded with a whey starter and set with calf rennet in open copper vats. The curd is cut to rice-sized grains, cooked to 53 °C or more, pressed into large wheels and salted. The wheels ripen on spruce boards, rubbed with salt and morge, for at least 120 days. Made in 8 steps over 4.7 months. The longest step, ripen on spruce boards, takes at least 3.9 months (INAO 2013) and runs at up to 19 °C (INAO 2013). Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus helveticus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 3.9 monthsSet[inao-cdc]Ripen on spruce boards
Temperatureup to 19 °CSet[inao-cdc]Ripen on spruce boards

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe specification fixes the steps and limits, not the amounts. A vat may give at most 12 wheels per make and three makes a day.
Raw cow milk · Cooled at once to below 18 °C; never heated above 40 °C before renneting[inao-cdc]
Whey starter and cultures · Natural or selected cultures incubated at least 3 h; a starter grown on raw whey is compulsory[inao-cdc]
Calf rennet · From the abomasum of an unweaned calf, with at least 520 mg chymosin per litre; bovine pepsin is banned[inao-cdc]
Salt · Dry salt or brine, then brine and morge on the rind[inao-cdc]
Starter: natural whey starter (raw whey culture) plus natural or selected cultures

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.7 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
10–18 °C

What changes: Starting material: raw milk from farms close to the dairy

Step 1 of 8
Collect and cool the raw milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
10–18 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli
S. thermophilus
Lactobacillus helveticus
L. delbrueckii
Propionibacteria

Output: raw milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
white

Microbes at work in this step

native raw-milk flora

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

Comté must be made from raw milk in open copper vats, by hand, in village dairies that collect milk only from farms close by. It ripens on spruce boards with a smear rind for at least 120 days. The French IGP Gruyère is made in a similar way but must also spend weeks in a warm cellar to form eyes.

Milk
Raw milk from within a 25 km circle, cooled at once to below 18 °C and heated to no more than 40 °C before renneting
Starter
Natural or selected cultures incubated for at least 3 h; a starter grown on raw whey is compulsory
Rennet
Calf rennet with at least 520 mg chymosin per litre; bovine pepsin is banned
Cooking
In an open copper vat the curd is held at 53 °C or more for at least 30 min
Pressing
At least 100 g/cm² for at least 6 h
Salting
Dry salt and morge within 24 h of unmoulding, or brine for up to 12 h
Pre-ripening
At least 21 days at 10–15 °C, RH above 90%
Ripening
At 19 °C or below on spruce boards, at least 120 days from renneting
Size
32–45 kg, 55–75 cm across, heel 8–13 cm; fat in dry matter 45–54%

Related ferments

History and sources

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

The producers' leaflet calls Comté the first French cheese with a protected designation.

  1. [inao-cdc] INAO, Cahier des charges de l'AOP Comté (version of 3 June 2013); a newer text was approved in December 2025spec
  2. [cigc-school] Comité Interprofessionnel de Gestion du Comté (CIGC), The cheesemaker's school (producers' leaflet on the eight making steps)other
  3. [bouton1998] Bouton Y., Guyot P., Grappin R. 1998, Preliminary characterization of microflora of Comté cheese, Journal of Applied Microbiology 85:123–131, doi:10.1046/j.1365-2672.1998.00476.xpaper
  4. [lutin2024] Lutin J., Dufrene F., Guyot P., Palme R., Achilleos C., Bouton Y., Buchin S. 2024, Microbial composition and viability of natural whey starters used in PDO Comté cheese-making, Food Microbiology 121:104521, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2024.104521paper