Slovenská bryndza

Appearance & taste

Slovenská bryndza is naturally white, spreadable, ripe and slightly grainy. The specification describes its smell and taste as delicate and pleasantly sour, of sheep’s cheese, with a slightly piquant, salty note. These characteristics come from the natural microflora of sheep’s cheese made from raw milk, including lactic acid bacteria of the genera Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Streptococcus and Enterococcus as well as the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus and the mould Geotrichum candidum.

The cheese used to be sold in wooden containers of 5 to 10 kg, from which the trader took the required quantity. Today it is sold in containers of wood or other material holding 1 to 5 kg, in small cuboid packs of aluminium composite material holding 0.125 to 1 kg, in rolls of wood veneer or in a sausage-shaped plastic casing. The label gives the name “Slovenská bryndza” and the producing business.

Production

The sheep’s milk comes from grazing sheep of the Valaška, Zošľachtená valaška, Cigája and Východofrízska breeds, which make up 80 % of the sheep kept for production; Lacaune are increasingly kept as well. In March and April they graze at lower altitudes, from May and in summer on higher mountain pastures. The raw sheep’s milk is warmed to 28 to 32 °C and curdled with rennet. The curd is cut into pieces of 0.5 to 1 cm, shaped by hand into lumps of 3 to 7 kg, lifted out of the whey in a cheesecloth and drained. The lumps then sour for 2 to 3 days at 21 to 25 °C and ripen for 4 to 6 days at 8 to 20 °C on wooden racks or stainless steel; meanwhile they are turned and wiped dry. The milk can also be pasteurised; it is then inoculated with cultures obtained from sheep’s cheese made from raw milk or from barrel cheese. Cow’s milk lump cheese is made from pasteurised whole milk; according to the specification, the breed and husbandry of the cows play no role.

Specialised businesses buy the lumps twice a week or make them themselves. There they ripen for another 3 to 5 days, 7 to 8 days in total. The dry rind is then removed, the cheese is pressed in a pressure vessel for two days, chopped in a fixed ratio and ground in a roller mill. The rollers run at different speeds and make the mass smooth and spreadable. Salt is added as needed during stirring. Packaging takes place only at the producing business so that the highly perishable cheese is not adulterated. All steps take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area is the mountain region of Slovakia, bounded among other things by the White Carpathians in the west, the Tatras and the Polish border in the north and the border with Ukraine in the east. Because it covers more than 80 % of the country’s area, the cheese bears the name of the whole country. According to the specification, the same sheep breeds graze everywhere on pastures with the same flora and the same climate.

Sheep farming has a long tradition in Slovakia, and sheep’s cheese was a livelihood in the mountains. When there was surplus milk, the lumps were ground, pressed and preserved with salt in wooden barrels; this “barrel bryndza” was an important food in times of shortage. According to the specification, Ján Vagač invented bryndza while trying to preserve sheep’s cheese, and in 1787 the first business was set up in Detva, followed in 1797 by another in Zvolenská Slatina. At the end of the 19th century the low-salt spreadable variety was introduced in Zvolen and quickly spread throughout Slovakia.

According to the specification, an average of 3.5 million kg was produced before the First World War, more than two thirds of it exported, mainly to Austria and Hungary. The Codex Alimentarius Austriacus (Vienna 1917) names the typical microorganisms, which Otakar Laxa called “Karpathenkokkus” and “Oidium lactis”; the latter is now called Geotrichum candidum. Bryndza is an ingredient of traditional Slovak dishes such as “Bryndzové halušky” (bryndza dumplings) and, according to the specification, is found at every fair in Slovak towns.