MAIN LACTIC-ACID BACTERIA ISOLATED DURING RIPENING OF CASAR-DE-CACERES CHEESE

Many Spanish ewes’ milk cheeses are made with raw milk, without specific starters, the ripening process depending entirely on the natural flora. We have already reported the development of the microbial flora and physicochemical properties during ripening of Casar de Caceres cheese, a very popular variety of raw ewes’ milk cheese from Extremadura, south-west Spain (Poullet et al. 1991). In these cheeses the temperature and relative humidity of ripening vary between 10 and 20 °C and 60 and 90% respectively. Such wide ranges, together with variations in milk composition and in natural microflora, lead to unpredictable chemical and biological changes during manufacturing, the result being lack of uniformity of the cheeses. The selection and use of indigenous starters and a better control of temperature and humidity during ripening would allow us to obtain defined final products. To this end, and because these cheeses have been scarcely studied, our purpose in this work was to identify the main lactic acid bacteria isolated after different periods of ripening of Casar de Caceres cheeses. © 1993, Proprietors of Journal of Dairy Research. All rights reserved.