Spinning of Provolone Valpadana DOP
Spinning of Provolone Valpadana DOP: the process of master cheesemakers to create the shapes
The spinning of Provolone Valpadana is an extremely fascinating process, representative of this type of cheese.
It is the central part of the long manufacturing process, which also includes the cooking and subsequent processing phases. maturation period.
From thousands of cows, mainly of the Friesian breed, milk is produced that will first be collected and then processed in modern dairies. From here, the countless forms that distinguish the Provolone Valpadana.
Milk is transformed by the skill of man and nature. Today, as in the past, milk becomes curd and then cheese, through the use of rennet, a substance that already allowed the first shepherds to transform milk into cheese. Today, as in prehistoric times, rennet is a product of nature that comes to us from animals, calves (for the type mild), lambs or kids (for the typology spicy cheese and spicy seasoned), which causes the milk to curdle.
The addition of whey starter for fermentation and breaking the curd are two important phases.
Before spinning: the whey starter
Even before using the rennet and starting to spin the Provolone Valpadana, the cheesemakers enrich the milk with another very powerful natural element, the whey starter, which is whey from the previous day's processing and left to rest for a day and a night.
Whey is the liquid that remains in the boiler when the curd has solidified.
This substance is rich in microorganisms as precious as gold for the phenomena that it will set in motion in the future cheese, but also because it is these ferments that, being transmitted day by day from one cheese to another, imprint on it the stamp, hidden and intrinsic, but strong and characteristic of the place, of the dairy and of the cattle of the stables that send their milk there.
Spinning and subsequent processes
The curd is broken twice.
But the most characteristic action of the thousand-year-old process that leads us to obtain Provolone Valpadana is the “spinning” (in fact, Provolone Valpadana DOP is referred to as a stretched curd cheese).
Specially created molds allow the pasta to be shaped into any shape you want: spherical, pear-shaped, cylindrical, salami-shaped, mandarin-shaped.
The salt will give the final touch to the future cheese, before resting in the maturing warehouses and other processes such as the smoking.
