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Raw milk cheese is safe after a certain age since the good bacteria eliminate the bad bacteria.

jacobr1 4y ago
Wouldn't that also apply to pasteurized cheese? Cultures are usually introduced which I would expect to outproduce bad bacteria just like with raw-milk cheese.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Yes it does also apply to pasteurized cheese. But pasteurized cheese is safe at any age (young ones safe because of pasteurization step, older ones because of good bacteria). And slightly less flavourful.
  - cheeze_whizz 4y ago
    My informed opinion as a cheese maniac is that raw or pasteurized milk doesn't make any perceptible difference in cheese quality. What makes the difference is a) the animals' diet (which imparts flavors that don't go away with pasteurization), b) the manufacturing process (anything made in a factory will be bland, even if it's made with raw milk) and c) the aging. The most important factor by far is aging. There's a reason why the French have a special name for the special job of aging cheese, "affineur". A good affinage can transform the most mediocre cheese into a culinary tour de force. Source: I make cheese and age it myself.
    - woleium 4y ago
      The pasteurization process itself is much less impactful on taste now than it used to be.
cheeze_whizz 4y ago
That's not true. First of all, as cheese ages all the bacteria (and fungi and yeasts) inside it die out because they run out of food to eat. You see, they're trapped in a solid lump of protein so they have nowhere to go. So they die of hunger. That does make the cheese safe to eat so cases of food poisoning from hard cheeses that tend to age for more than three months, are virtually unheard of. Second, whether good bacteria will outnumber the "bad" depends on how many of each ... goodness value? there were at the start. If your raw milk is contaminated with sufficiently high numbers of coliform bacteria (E coli and friends) there is no amount of bacterial goodness that can make that milk good for cheesemaking. Most likely you're looking at "early blowing" (literally the cheese blowing up like a rugby ball, with a great big fissure in its center, because of gasses released by bacteria early in its maturation). Third, some "good" and "bad" bacteria can coexist quite happily with each other simply because they do not consume the same resources and so do not compete for them. Don't have a fourth one for you.

Wouldn't that also apply to pasteurized cheese? Cultures are usually introduced which I would expect to outproduce bad bacteria just like with raw-milk cheese.

Mikeb85 4y ago
Yes it does also apply to pasteurized cheese. But pasteurized cheese is safe at any age (young ones safe because of pasteurization step, older ones because of good bacteria). And slightly less flavourful.
- cheeze_whizz 4y ago
  My informed opinion as a cheese maniac is that raw or pasteurized milk doesn't make any perceptible difference in cheese quality. What makes the difference is a) the animals' diet (which imparts flavors that don't go away with pasteurization), b) the manufacturing process (anything made in a factory will be bland, even if it's made with raw milk) and c) the aging. The most important factor by far is aging. There's a reason why the French have a special name for the special job of aging cheese, "affineur". A good affinage can transform the most mediocre cheese into a culinary tour de force. Source: I make cheese and age it myself.
  - woleium 4y ago
    The pasteurization process itself is much less impactful on taste now than it used to be.

cheeze_whizz 4y ago

That's not true. First of all, as cheese ages all the bacteria (and fungi and yeasts) inside it die out because they run out of food to eat. You see, they're trapped in a solid lump of protein so they have nowhere to go. So they die of hunger. That does make the cheese safe to eat so cases of food poisoning from hard cheeses that tend to age for more than three months, are virtually unheard of. Second, whether good bacteria will outnumber the "bad" depends on how many of each ... goodness value? there were at the start. If your raw milk is contaminated with sufficiently high numbers of coliform bacteria (E coli and friends) there is no amount of bacterial goodness that can make that milk good for cheesemaking. Most likely you're looking at "early blowing" (literally the cheese blowing up like a rugby ball, with a great big fissure in its center, because of gasses released by bacteria early in its maturation). Third, some "good" and "bad" bacteria can coexist quite happily with each other simply because they do not consume the same resources and so do not compete for them. Don't have a fourth one for you.