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Fermentation Atlas

Cheese from Lombardy, northern Italy

Stracchino / Crescenzacrescenza

Crescenza is a fresh, rindless Italian soft cheese of pasteurised cow milk, soured with Streptococcus thermophilus and set with rennet at about 38 °C. The soft curd is moulded, kept warm until it reaches pH 5.2, brined briefly and chilled for about a week. It is eaten fresh, unlike the stracchino cheeses that ripen for about 20 days. Made in 6 steps over 7 days. The longest step, chill to finish draining, takes 7 days (Tidona F 2020) and runs at 4 °C (Tidona F 2020). Salt is 15 % (Tidona F 2020). Streptococcus thermophilus does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7 daysReported[tidona2020]Chill to finish draining
Temperature4 °CReported[tidona2020]Chill to finish draining
Salt15 %Reported[tidona2020]Brine briefly
AciditypH 5.2Reported[tidona2020]Mould and keep warm until the curd sours

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are for a 10 l laboratory vat that follows the industrial process (Tidona et al. 2020). Dairies scale them to their vats.
Cow milk · Pasteurised at 73 °C for 16 s in the lab trial; standardised to 3.9 % fat[tidona2020]
2.5 % of the milk weightStreptococcus thermophilus starter · A commercial culture grown the day before to about pH 5[tidona2020][chirico2014]
0.27 ml per litre of milkRennet (220 IMCU/ml)[tidona2020]
Brine of 15 % salt[tidona2020]
Starterdefined-culture (Streptococcus thermophilus blends); rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days

Start
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37–73 °C

What changes: The milk is pasteurised at 73 °C, then cooled close to 38 °C

Step 1 of 6
Pasteurise the milk and cool it to setting temperature
Time
0.3 min
Reported
Temperature
37–73 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
S. thermophilus

Output: pasteurised milk at setting temperature.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

heat kills most milk bacteria

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

Crescenza is a stracchino cheese eaten fresh, without the ripening of about 20 days that other members of the stracchino family get. Unlike most fresh lactic cheeses, which set cool with mesophilic cultures, it is set warm with rennet and the thermophilic Streptococcus thermophilus.

Milk
Pasteurised cow milk
Ripening
None; chilled about 7 days, then sold fresh with a shelf life of about 20 days
Moisture
About 58 % (reference value used for yield)

Related ferments

Variants

  • Ripened stracchinoStracchino cheeses other than Crescenza ripen for about 20 days (see stracchino-tipico).

Safety

Crescenza is made from pasteurised milk and is kept at 4 °C; its shelf life is about 20 days.

History and sources

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

Crescenza output is about 28,000 tonnes a year, about 30 % of Italian soft cheeses without a PDO (Tidona et al. 2020).

  1. [tidona2020] Tidona F., Francolino S., Ghiglietti R. et al. 2020, Application of recombined milk to produce Crescenza-type cheese in laboratory-scale cheesemaking, Foods 9(7):928, doi:10.3390/foods9070928paper
  2. [chirico2014] Chirico D., Gorla A., Verga V. et al. 2014, Bacteriophage-insensitive mutants for high quality Crescenza manufacture, Frontiers in Microbiology 5:201, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2014.00201paper