Alien cheese: sanctions may deprive Russians of their favorite product and raw smoked sausage

A bacterial starter culture is a microorganism or group of microorganisms that is necessarily used in the manufacture of all fermented milk products and cheeses. Most often, cheesemakers use consortia of bacterial strains, each of which simultaneously performs several functions: curdling milk, suppressing harmful bacteria, starting the fermentation process at different times, which ultimately forms the unique taste of our favorite varieties. In general, dairies use 2 to 7 microorganisms per product.

— Picking up an original sourdough is a real art, — says Stanislav Gorbatov. “To do this, in almost every country there are libraries of unicellular microorganisms, which scientists combine into consortiums depending on the required quality and type of cheese.

Many have heard of mesophilic and thermophilic bacteria, they are used at certain temperatures, mesophilic – at 30-33 degrees, thermophilic – at 40-45. In all countries, including ours, both cultures are used.

The genera of bacteria for cheese making are also known to everyone: these are lactococci, leuconostocs, lactic acid bacilli, propionic acid bacteria. Only the species composition of specific types of starter cultures, the quantitative ratio of different types of bacteria for a particular type of cheese differs.

For example, in Russian starter cultures, the more active lactococcus subspecies lactis predominates, in foreign ones, the subspecies cremoris, which is more sensitive to milk composition and temperature.

When the starters were “small”

Why are other types of starter cultures used abroad? It seems to be the same lactococci, but different species …

– Abroad – other breeds of cows and other climatic conditions are fundamental components for the production of certain types of cheese, for example, hard parmesan. Under them, historically, their own sourdoughs were also selected. In the Soviet Union, cows, herbs, and sourdough were such that we got better, mostly semi-hard cheeses: Rossiyskiy, Kostromskoy, Hollandskiy, Poshekhonskiy, Sovietskiy.

“But even now, neither “Russian” nor “Poshekhonsky” have disappeared from our shelves, although we use imported starters. How was this achieved?

– Indeed, instead of ours, primordially Russian – BK-Uglich-No. 4, BK-Uglich-5A, Bioantibut and other starter cultures, we now use imported ones. Western sourdough technologists select consortiums of micro-organisms to mimic our traditional cheeses. There are not many cheese factories using our concentrates.

– How did it happen that our starters almost completely gave way to imported ones?

– Let me explain why it happened. From the 40s to the 90s of the last century, our dairy industry developed independently, using its own industrial starter. It was produced by starter factories that existed at every dairy plant. A few grams of the starter brought from such a plant (1–2 grams to produce 1 ton of cheese) was added at the plant itself to the starter with milk, where the living substance grew very quickly, and after that it was added to milk in a cheese-making bath. There was another way. Back in 1969, in the USSR, an author’s certificate was obtained for a bacterial preparation for the direct introduction of sourdough into a cheese-making bath. “Having arrived” from the starter plant, it was immediately added to milk without preliminary cultivation in the starter. However, for such a direct application per 1 ton of cheese, 100-120 grams of sourdough was already required, that is, 100 times more than with the old method.

Under this more convenient, as practice has shown, technology, it was necessary to build large starter factories, which we never had. And in the West they developed. And in the 90s, when Western suppliers of “direct” starters came to us, our small factories simply could not stand the competition.

microbial empires

– Where did the flow of starter cultures come from in the 90s?

– From large companies in Denmark, France, as well as Italy and Bulgaria. They operate one plant per country, but they are entire microbial empires covering several hectares of land, with independent workshops, a separated air exchange system that does not allow cross-contamination.

– So they immediately began to supply us with their microorganisms?

– Yes, moreover, since mesophiles from their collections did not work in our cheeses, they began to add thermophilic bacteria to them, although thermophilic bacteria should not be used in the production of many domestic cheeses (Rossiyskoye, Kostroma, Hollandsky, etc.) .d.). By this they did not improve, but worsened the quality of our cheeses.

– If our starter plants are completely gone, is there a risk that one day we will be left without the microbes necessary for the production of cheese?

“We still have one small biofactory in Uglich, created back in 1940 at the Research Institute of Cheese and Butter Making (today it is a branch of the Federal Scientific Center for Food Systems), which produces only 5 percent of sourdough. She arrives in several places, for example, in Kostroma. This is perhaps one of the few places in the country where you can taste Kostroma cheese the way it was during the Soviet era. Well, 95% of the starter is already supplied from outside. And now, more than ever, the issue of building our new starter factories is acute.

– Are there any offers from the business?

— Yes, we are starting construction of the first such plant, also in Uglich. The project has already been approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government of the Yaroslavl Region.

— How long will it take to start production from scratch?

– 3-5 years.

— Do we have enough strains for the production of various cheeses?

— We have good collections of strains. For example, the Experimental Biofactory in Uglich has 4,000 strains and 300 phages. The capacity of the biofactory makes it possible to produce 600–800 kilograms of bacterial concentrates per year, which can be used for various types of cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, and fermented milk drinks. Previously, it provided most of the cheese factories in the Soviet Union. There is also a collection of cultures for cheese making in Altai, at the Barnaul biofactory.

“Suppose you recreate the starter factories again. Is it possible to return to old-style starter cultures, when a small amount of starter culture is “grown up” at the dairy?

“I think such starters will become a thing of the past,” direct introduction turned out to be much more convenient. After all, for a technologist at a dairy plant, the starters that needed to be grown caused a lot of trouble: first they had to be grown, checked to prevent infection with harmful bacteria. And when receiving direct starter cultures, technologists relieve themselves of part of the responsibility, because the quality is already guaranteed to him by the manufacturer. But, I think, it makes sense to return the experience of using small starter departments at cheese factories, as it was in the USSR. Many are already addressing this issue in order to avoid dependence on foreign suppliers.

Why should cheese be protected?

– Compositions of several microorganisms can be called chimeras in their microcommunity?

– Not. After all, they are not “sewn” with each other at the DNA level, they just take two, three types, something more, something less, and mix them together.

— Tell us, are there any stories of interesting finds that later went into production and turned into popular cheeses?

— In the 1970s, a unique strain of lactobacillus L. plantarum was isolated, which inhibits the development of microorganisms harmful to cheese and improves the quality of the product. Now this strain is part of the consortia of multispecies bacterial concentrates Bioantibut, BK-Uglich-5A and monospecies concentrate BK-Uglich-P. These concentrates are in the greatest demand among cheese makers. We call such starter cultures “protective”.

Let’s get back to the imported starters that we have been consuming for the past 30 years. Many Russians have grown up without ever having tasted true Russian cheese. Tell me what it is?

— As in all other products, we have a more neutral taste than imported cheeses. It feels less sharp, there are no sharp shades. And do not think that there are any spices in cheeses made from European starter cultures. Not! It is the sourdough starters that are responsible for giving this or that flavor to the cheese.

What about blue cheese?

– There, along with lactic acid bacteria, mold fungi also work.

Does the color of the cheese depend on the sourdough?

“It depends more on the composition of the milk and the fat content.

– It won’t turn out that, having returned our production of starter cultures and our traditional Russian cheese varieties, we, accustomed to sharper shades of tastes, will again miss the exotic?

– Of course, people for more than 30 years have already become accustomed to the “Western” taste of cheese. And we are not going to deprive them of their favorite varieties. We are already working on isolating new strains of lactic acid bacteria to improve the taste of cheeses and expand their range.

– And what about cottage cheese, yogurt and sour cream?

– If there are enough starter cultures for cheese, then it should be enough for these products, because they need very little bacterial microflora – from 10 to 60 grams per ton.

Who actually produces raw smoked sausages

“But with raw smoked and dry-cured sausages, if Western suppliers refuse to supply special, meat starter cultures — starter cultures, everything will be much more difficult,” explains Stanislav Gorbatov. – I would not say that we do not have a collection – it is just small. That’s enough for now. But for the future, the creation of our own production capacity would not hurt us.

— Are other microorganisms used for sausage starter cultures?

– Yes. These are staphylococci: carnosus, xylosus; lactobacilli: sakei, plantarum, curvatus and others. They are added to raw smoked sausages at the stage of minced meat preparation. After the minced meat is sent for fermentation at a temperature of 30-35 degrees. So raw smoked sausage acquires a characteristic taste and aroma.

– And I thought that they appear only as a result of smoking …

– Smoking gives only the taste of smoking, everything else is given by microorganisms.

– How do they do it?

– Sugar is specially added to minced meat for them. Bacteria feed on it, and then secrete special enzymes that, when warm, bring the meat to the desired condition.

– Does everything happen differently with semi-smoked and boiled-smoked sausages?

— Yes, starter cultures are not required there. If they cease to be supplied, the problem will arise only with the production of raw smoked and dry-cured sausages. We will be able to produce them only according to the classical technology, which requires a much longer production cycle, which will affect the cost of sausages on the shelves.

– Do you have a vision of how to avoid this?

– Only to create their own production facilities for the production of starter crops.

– Is it possible for our biologists to theoretically get to the bottom, find out what kind of bacteria are contained in imported starter cultures?

– Theoretically possible. For example, take imported yogurt and isolate from it the bacterium that worked on it. But for the last 5–10 years, sourdough manufacturers have been vigilantly watching to ensure that their developments are not stolen.

— How do they do it?

“They can buy a sample of the new yogurt, break it down into components, and find their own unique bacterium with a special label in it.

– That’s it? We eat “labeled” yoghurts?!

– It turns out that it is (smiles).

So, in order not to eat yogurts, sour cream, cheeses, sausages “labeled” by Western companies, all the time looking back: whether they will block the supply of starter cultures for them, we must quickly create our own microbial “empires”.