"Pit" cheese: Compositional, microbiological and sensory characteristics

"Fossa" or pit cheese, a typical product of a small geographical area of ce ntral Italy, is produced in limited quantities and is of great economic imp ortance in its market niche. The cheese is made from a mixture of pasteuriz ed cow and sheep milk. After ripening for approximately 60 days, it is aged for about 3 months in pits dug into tuffaceous rock, to give the product a particular, highly valued flavour. To establish which objective parameters may contribute to giving the unique qualities to the product, and to check for correlations between the ageing methods and the characteristics of the cheese, microbiological, chemical and sensorial analyses were carried out on milk, cheese at different ripening stages, cheese aged for 3 months in t he pit and cheese aged for the same period in the cheese factory. The pit a ged cheese showed notable differences in comparison to the cheese aged in t he factory. The "Fossa" cheese was less hard, but moister, saltier, sharper and sourer, with a more pronounced aroma, than the factory-aged cheese. Ch emical analysis showed significantly different values of water content, non -casein and non-protein nitrogen, amount of free amino acids and compositio n of free amino acids and free fatty acid fractions for the pit aged cheese . Microbiological analysis showed no significant differences between the am ount and distribution of lactic and non-lactic microflora in cheeses aged w ith different modalities. The environmental conditions of the pit, probably together with the presence of molds on the surface of the pitaged cheese, could be responsible for the development of the unique chemical and sensori al characteristics of "Fossa" cheese.