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Cheese from Chile

Queso de cabra (Chilean goat)Queso fresco de cabra

Raw goat milk is cooled to about 25 °C and set with lonco, a home-made rennet of dried, salted kid stomach soaked in whey. The curd is broken by hand, drained into moulds, pressed by hand in a cloth and dry-salted on both faces, then sold fresh. A study of improved methods added a mesophilic culture, pasteurised the milk and ripened the cheese 28 days at about 12 °C.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTraditional farm process with no fixed amounts; the study found rennet doses were never measured.
Raw goat milk[camacho1988]
Lonco, home-made rennet from the salted, dried stomach of a kid, soaked in whey from the dairy and filteredThe amount varies between makes and makers[camacho1988]
Salt, rubbed on both faces of the cheese[camacho1988]
Starternone in traditional making; the improved method used a direct-vat mesophilic culture

Total time across the recorded steps: 28 days

Start
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25 °C

What changes: Fresh goat milk is strained and left to cool to about 25 °C

Step 1 of 6
Filter and cool the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
25 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Goats are milked in the corral and the milk is filtered through cloth.

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

Raw goat milk is cooled to about 25 °C and set with lonco, a home-made rennet of dried, salted kid stomach soaked in whey. The curd is broken by hand, drained into moulds, pressed by hand in a cloth and dry-salted on both faces, then sold fresh. A study of improved methods added a mesophilic culture, pasteurised the milk and ripened the cheese 28 days at about 12 °C. Made in 6 steps over 28 days. The longest step, ripen (improved method), takes 28 days (Camacho L) and runs at 12 °C (Camacho L). Salt is 1.9–2.6 % (Camacho L 1988). Lactic bacteria of the raw milk, whose normal growth Camacho and Sierra say may explain part of the rise in bacterial counts during making; the traditional process adds no culture and the species are not named and Direct-vat mesophilic lactic culture, at 2%, in the improved method do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step28 daysReported[camacho-tech]Ripen (improved method)
Temperature12 °CReported[camacho-tech]Ripen (improved method)
Salt1.9–2.6 %Measured[camacho1988][camacho-tech]Dry-salt

What makes this one different

A farm goat cheese set with lonco, a rennet each family makes from a kid's stomach soaked in whey, and salted on the surface rather than in brine.

Milk
Raw goat milk on farms
Ripening
Sold fresh; 28 days in an improved method
Composition
Farm cheese averaged 44.9 g/100 g total solids, 18.7 protein and 23.7 fat

Related ferments

Safety

Raw goat milk, much of it from goats with mastitis, carried coagulase-positive S. aureus; outbreaks from eating the cheese were attributed to its toxin and to faecal coliforms. An improved method tested hygienic milking, pasteurisation and a starter culture.

Hazards the sources name: Coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus in 75% of the milk samples, reduced to 50% by the acidification during making; faecal coliforms were high and Brucella melitensis was not found.

History and sources

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

Camacho and Sierra sampled rural cheese dairies in Lampa and Til-Til in the 1983–84 and 1984–85 seasons, where 120 families kept about 9,400 goats. A 2006 University of Chile thesis says goat cheese in Chile has historically been made by family farmers, mainly in the IV Region, as a subsistence activity, and that 14 cheese plants were built there in the 1990s with INDAP support to modernise production and improve hygiene. A 2018 review calls the cheese a typical product of the rural villages of the Norte Chico, especially the Coquimbo Region, and says its sanitary side was questioned but that cheese makers have since repositioned it, and some consumers now count it as gourmet.

  1. [camacho1988] Camacho L., Sierra C. 1988, Diagnóstico sanitario y tecnológico del proceso artesanal del queso fresco de cabra en Chile, Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición 38(4):935-954paper
  2. [camacho-tech] Camacho L., Sierra C., Jarpa J., Retamal E., Aplicación de tecnologías apropiadas para elevar la calidad sanitaria y los rendimientos del queso de cabra de minifundios, Archivos Latinoamericanos de Nutrición (INTA, Universidad de Chile)paper
  3. [palma2006] Palma Lira P.A. 2006, Evaluación del estado actual de la agroindustria quesera perteneciente a la agricultura familiar campesina en la IV Región, Universidad de Chile thesis (abstract)paper
  4. [cortes2018] Cortés M.E., Calderón F., Alfaro A.A. 2018, Emprendimiento e innovación para el producto queso de cabra artesanal de la Región de Coquimbo, Chile - estado actual y proyecciones futuras, Revista Internacional Académica da Lusofonia 5(5):47–53 (abstract)paper