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Cheese from Sweden, Västerbotten

Västerbottensost

Västerbottensost is a hard cow cheese made only at Burträsk and stored at least 14 months. In a study of a traditional Swedish long-ripened cheese made with Västerbotten milk, the milk was pasteurised, set with a mesophilic starter and coagulant, cooked for several hours above 40 °C, made into 18 kg cylinders, brined to about 1.2 % salt, waxed and ripened at 10–13 °C. The paper does not name the cheese brand.

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe study made each batch of 18 kg cylinders from approximately 15 000 L of milk, the volume needed for full-scale production of one batch. The maker's original recipe is described by its annual report as secret.
Pasteurised cow milk from local farms around Burträsk[visitumea-vb][sun2023]
Mesophilic starter culture (in the study)[sun2023]
Coagulant (bovine chymosin and pepsin 75/25 in the study)[sun2023]
Salt, as brine (in the study)[sun2023]
Startera mesophilic starter culture in the study of a Swedish long-ripened cheese made with Västerbotten milk

Total time across the recorded steps: 14 months

Start
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What changes: Milk from local farms is pasteurised

Step 1 of 6
Pasteurise the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus
Leuconostoc
Lactobacillus
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

Västerbottensost is a hard cow cheese made only at Burträsk and stored at least 14 months. In a study of a traditional Swedish long-ripened cheese made with Västerbotten milk, the milk was pasteurised, set with a mesophilic starter and coagulant, cooked for several hours above 40 °C, made into 18 kg cylinders, brined to about 1.2 % salt, waxed and ripened at 10–13 °C. The paper does not name the cheese brand. Made in 6 steps over 14 months. The longest step, store and ripen, takes at least 14 months (Visit Umeå). In the Swedish long-ripened cheese made with Västerbotten milk, Lactococcus (dominant in the early process samples and young cheese) and Leuconostoc, which with Lactococcus dominated cheese aged 7–20 months; Lactobacillus stayed at low relative abundance does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 14 monthsReported[visitumea-vb][scan-vb]Store and ripen

What makes this one different

Made only at Burträsk and ripened more than a year; in the study the starter bacteria, not lactobacilli, still dominated after 20 months of ripening.

Milk
Pasteurised cow milk from northern Sweden
Ripening
At least 14 months; an extra-aged type at least 24 months
Place
Made only in Burträsk, from a recipe said to date from 1872
In the study
A Swedish long-ripened cheese made with Västerbotten milk (the paper does not name the brand) was pasteurised at 72 °C for 15 s, cooked for several hours above 40 °C, brine-salted to about 1.2 % salt, waxed and ripened at 10–13 °C

Related ferments

Safety

The milk is pasteurised before cheesemaking (72 °C for 15 s in the study). In the study the wheels were brine-salted to about 1.2 % salt, waxed and ripened at 10–13 °C, and the maker stores the cheese at least 14 months before sale.

History and sources

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

Tourism and press pages and the maker's 2022 annual report date the recipe to 1872 and a dairymaid in Burträsk, Ulrika Eleonora Lindström; no one knows exactly what happened, and the story is told as legend. The maker marked 150 years of the cheese in 2022.

Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [sun2023] Sun L, Höjer A, Johansson M, Saedén KH, Bernes G, Hetta M, Gustafsson AH, Dicksved J, Lundh Å (2023). Associations between the bacterial composition of farm bulk milk and the microbiota in the resulting Swedish long-ripened cheese. Foods 12(20):3796, doi:10.3390/foods12203796 (with Norrmejerier; milk from Västerbotten county; the paper does not name the cheese brand)paper
  2. [visitumea-vb] Visit Umeå, 'Västerbottensost' (tourism page)web
  3. [scan-vb] Scan Magazine, "Västerbottensost: For the love of cheese" (feature)web
  4. [norrmejerier-2022] Norrmejerier ekonomisk förening, Års- och hållbarhetsredovisning 2022 (annual and sustainability report), sections on the association and on Västerbottensostweb