Development of "Quadrello di Ovino", a Novel Fresh Ewe's Cheese

This work was performed to produce a new soft ewe's milk cheese, namely "Quadrello di ovino" (QdO) cheese, to enlarge ewe's dairy product portfolio of South Italy, barely limited to Pecorino cheese typology. Cheese making was performed applying the technology for "Crescenza" cheese typology with some modifications. In particular, pasteurized ewes' milk was inoculated with two commercial starter formulations (SF1 and SF2) of Streptococcus thermophilus to obtain two different productions (QdO-P1 and QdO-P2, respectively). Plate counts demonstrated the ability of both starter formulations to drive the fermentation process, since S. thermophilus counts reached 10⁹ CFU/g in both productions. Generally, the two starter formulations did not affect the chemical composition of QdO cheeses that contained, on average, 64.08% dry matter of which approximately 54.99% were fats and 36.39% proteins. Among chemical parameters, significant differences were registered for secondary lipid oxidation state (significantly lower for QdO-P2), fatty acids and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, the differences registered among cheese VOCs from were not perceived by the panelists who recognized both cheese productions highly similar, although QdO-P2 cheeses were mostly appreciated by the judges. This study allowed to produce a novel fresh ovine cheese with specific chemical and sensorial characteristics well appreciated by consumers.