🧂 Brined cheeses

Brined cheeses are soft and semi-hard cheeses with no real rind that ripen and keep in brine until sale ¹. Codex requires at least 40% fat in dry matter, and dry matter from 40% in soft and 52% in semi-hard types. Herbs and spices are allowed where they are part of the cheese's identity ¹.

The milk varies. Bulgarian white sirene uses cow's, sheep's, goat's, buffalo's or mixed milk ⁶, feta sheep's or a mix with goat's ³, and Turkish Ezine Peyniri a blend: 35–45% sheep's, at least 40% goat's, no more than 25% cow's ⁷.

Feta shows how exact the rules can be: no more than 30% goat's milk, from Macedonia, Thrace, Thessaly, Central Greece, the Peloponnese and Lesbos. The cheese goes into wooden or metal vessels with 7% brine, stays 15 days at 18 °C, then at 2–4 °C, for at least 2 months in all ³.

The name "Feta" has been protected in the EU since 2002 ³. In 2022 the EU Court of Justice found that Denmark had broken EU law by not stopping Danish producers from using the name for cheese outside the specification ⁵.

There are other protected names. Bulgarian sirene ripens for at least 45 days with cow's or goat's milk and 60 with sheep's, buffalo's or mixed milk ⁶. Ezine Peyniri ages from 8 months ⁷. Telemea de Ibănești is fresh after 24 hours and mature from 20 days ⁸.

Not everything like feta is the same. Halloumi matures not in classic brine but in salted whey for at least 40 days ⁴. Sulguni is a pasta filata cheese from Georgia ⁹. Slovak bryndza is a spreadable sheep's cheese, not a brined one ¹⁰.

Why it matters to you. These cheeses can be very salty: matured halloumi may have up to 6% salt ⁴. A white "feta-style" cheese may taste good, but in the EU it cannot be called Feta ³⁵. Check the ingredients, the type of milk and the PDO or PGI mark.