Discrimination of commercial Caciocavallo cheeses on the basis of the diversity of lactic microflora and primary proteolysis

The influence of the wooden equipment employed for cheese manufacture on the characteristics of a traditional stretched cheese during ripening

“…Furthermore, the species L. fermentum, L. paracasei, L. rhamnosus, L. casei, L. delbrueckii, and E. faecalis were found in other Caciocavallo type cheeses produced in South Italy (Gobbetti et al, 2002;Piraino et al, 2005;Morea et al, 2007). In our work, enterococci were detected at approximately constant levels (10 5 cfu g À1 for traditional and 10 4 cfu g À1 for standard cheeses), till 120 d of ripening.…”

“…10 8 cfu g À1 for mesophilic rod LAB and ca. 10 6 cfu g À1 for mesophilic coccus LAB, while thermophilic LAB were not higher than 10 6 cfu g À1 (Gobbetti et al, 2002) and different Caciocavallo produced in Calabria, Campania and Basilicata regions, collected from retail markets, for which the maximum levels were in the range 8.8e8.9 Log cfu g À1 on MRS (Piraino et al, 2005). The different dominating LAB colonies were isolated from the various plate counts of the cheese samples and 803 isolates were first subjected to several phenotypic tests from which thirteen groups were obtained.…”

Persistence of wild Streptococcus thermophilus strains on wooden vat and during the manufacture of a traditional Caciocavallo type cheese

“…Fifteen species belonging to six LAB genera (Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Leuconostoc, Streptococcus and Weissella) were identified. Except for Weissella, all other LAB genera are commonly associated with raw milk (Wouters et al, 2002;Franciosi et al, 2009;Franciosi et al, 2011), fermented milk matrices and Caciocavallo type cheese (Piraino et al, 2005;Morea et al, 2007;Piraino et al, 2008).…”

“…The autochthonous microflora (starter and non starter) is claimed to play a major role in the determination of the specific cheese characteristics (Piraino et al, 2005). For this reason several cheeses, particularly those enjoying a protected denomination of origin (PDO) status, including "pasta filata" cheeses, have been investigated extensively for the diversity of their LAB microflora and the main species have been technologically characterized at the strain level (Morea et al, 2007;Piraino et al, 2008).…”

Acid production, proteolysis, autolytic and inhibitory properties of lactic acid bacteria isolated from pasta filata cheeses: A multivariate screening study

“…Caciocavallo Silano is an Italian Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) cheese which, as other related varieties (Coppola, Succi, Sorrentino, Iorizzo, & Grazia, 2003;Gobbetti et al, 2002;Randazzo, Torriani, Akkermans, de Vos, & Vaughan, 2002), is produced in Southern Italy from raw milk without the use of starter cultures or with natural whey cultures (Piraino, Zotta, Ricciardi, & Parente, 2005). In two previous studies, we characterized the microflora of natural starter cultures (Parente, Rota, Ricciardi, & Clementi, 1997) and of Caciocavallo and similar cheeses (e.g.…”