Review: US Wisconsin Made Montchevre Brand Flavored Chevre Cheeses

[Cheese Head]

Haven't had goat's milk Chevre cheese for a long time so bought a four-pack 1 lb/0.45 kg total of flavored Chevre's from local SamsClub (WalMart's box lot store) here in Houston, Texas for USD9, 1 week ago.

Packaging says Montchevre product line is made by Betin Inc. in Wisconsin, USA. Ingredients are pasteurized goat's milk, cheese culture, rennet, and natamycine a "mold and yeast inhibitor", and best by Oct 2, 2009, basically 2.2 months from when bought, guessing 3 months from manufactured date? 

Opened the plain Chevre and let warm to room temperature, minimal aroma, nice appearance, texture and flavor. However flavor lacked the Chevre taste and was more like a dry cow's milk cream cheese flavor.

[FRANCOIS]

How, you are allowed to add nat. to fresh cheese in the US?  Jesus that's disgusting.  I have only ever used it to dip aged rinds. 

That cheese is UF'd, so it has the uber-creamy texture with none of the flavor.  UF is widespread in the US, and more so in Europe, as it reduces costs significantly.

[Cheese Head]

Francois, thanks, so what do I do with the other 3 packages , just kidding? So that's a good reason why we are all here making cheese, so we get away from chemical additives in manufactured ones!

I had no idea what Natamycine is so I just googled it and not much info in English, this was best hit. Few hits on wikipedia but surprisingly in languages other than English!

Silly question but what does UF'd stand for? Also how does it reduce cost for cheese manufacturers, does it basically give it very long shelf life, thus saving distribution costs?

Thanks for advice!

[FRANCOIS]

UF stands for ultra filtration (of milk).  It was devised in France in the late 70's for cam and brie.  Basically it works for any high moisture cheese, you simply filter the milk to give you your final moisture, fat and protein.  With this "retenate" you can make almost instant cheese by spraying rennet into it as molds are filled.  It's a bit hard to visualize I know but with UF milk there is no whey, it's already been removed in the filtration process, so there is no draining, no drying etc.  I have seen massive operations for feta and Camembert that just pump out cheese all day long like this.  UF milk makes it cheaper because you can sell the permeate (leftovers) for whey protein, you need less milk to make the same volume of cheese (since you are binding more of the lost fat and protein up front rather than losing it in the whey) and labor is reduced.  Downside?  High moisture leads to poor shelf life and the taste just isn't there.  There is a UF cam on the market in NZ that is flawlessly beautiful since it is set in the mold, but tastes like cardboard.

[sominus]

One thing I've found in the cheeses at Sam's Club is that they are all very consistently without real flavor.  If I need a "bulk cheese" for something I'm cooking, I'll use what they have but I haven't been able to rely on them for quality cheeses of any variety (that I've tried). 

I'm not sure how they do it, but they also manage to get many of their meats (salami, etc) to be nearly flavorless as well.

-Michael in Houston

[Tom Turophile]

UF stands for ultra filtration (of milk).  It was devised in France in the late 70's for cam and brie.  Basically it works for any high moisture cheese, you simply filter the milk to give you your final moisture, fat and protein.  With this "retenate" you can make almost instant cheese by spraying rennet into it as molds are filled.  It's a bit hard to visualize I know but with UF milk there is no whey, it's already been removed in the filtration process, so there is no draining, no drying etc.  I have seen massive operations for feta and Camembert that just pump out cheese all day long like this.  UF milk makes it cheaper because you can sell the permeate (leftovers) for whey protein, you need less milk to make the same volume of cheese (since you are binding more of the lost fat and protein up front rather than losing it in the whey) and labor is reduced.  Downside?  High moisture leads to poor shelf life and the taste just isn't there.  There is a UF cam on the market in NZ that is flawlessly beautiful since it is set in the mold, but tastes like cardboard.

Fascinating.  Did you know it was UF'd due to the natamycine?

[FRANCOIS]

No.  Nat. has nothing to do with UF.  I am just guessin git's UF'd.  It's a bulk fresh cheese made in Wisc.  Chances are very, very good it's UF.  the plant may not even have UF technology, most milk processing plants are doing it now and cheese sites can just order in their milk to a specified concentration.

Almost all milk in NZ is completely filtered and stripped of EVERYTHING and then reconstituted to make skim milk, 2% etc.  Not sure if it's done like that in the rest of the world (I suspect it may be) but you can taste it in the milk.  We have 8 major kinds of milk, from extra calcium to high protein.  I did a milk tasting panel once and since I was the only foreigner, I was the only one who could taste the oxidized taste of the milk from all of the processing.

[Cheese Head]

Even if UF'd don't want to throw away, so I'm eating some of the Sundried Tomatoes & Basil Chevre as writing this (not much of either as you can see in the pictures below ).

Sominus, for bulk, pre-sliced cheeses, and this one agree, but to their defense, this French Brie was nice and this US Double Cream Brie was good. Haven't tried their salami's.

Francois, agree with Tom, fascinating and thanks for the info. You raise a whole new discussion on milk processing that I didn't know about.

PS, found some more info here on UF Milk Cheese making and more here on process which interestingly says that because of UF milk's reduced volume, means lower shipping costs such that it can be cost effectively imported into ie US from other countries displacing US milk producers.

[FRANCOIS]

There's nothing inherently wrong with UF cheese, and it can be good (I hear that anyway but I haven't had one yet) it's just sort of cheating in my eyes.

[Cheese Head]

No kidding it's cheating, next you'll be telling me they also spray cheese flavored chemicals (like Jelly Bellies) into the packages with the UF milk and rennet!

As this UF topic is important and will get lost in this White Mold Board I've started a new Thread here quoting Francois.

[FRANCOIS]

Hate to break the news to you but yes, many cheese have flavors added to them.  Depending on the country and labeling requirements, they may not explicitly be disclosed.  Our process cheese plant adds bacon flavor to certain client's products.....I know of an Australian haloumi that, to get more of a "cheese flavor" in it (which is un achievable my traditional means) they add natural cheese flavorings. I have a box of them on my desk in fact for running some R&D trials a few years back.  We have parmesian, blue and butter flavors.   

You shouldn't have asked.

[DeejayDebi]

I wouldn't mind getting hold of the bacon flavored stuff! I have longed to make a bacon chesdar but I am afraid the pork will go bad and kill someone. I know we had this dicussion awhile back but did anyone ever try it?

[Cheese Head]

Aaaagghhh, I new deep down inside that the blue cheese salad dressing wasn't really blue cheese!

[FRANCOIS]

That actually is made form blue cheese, sort of.  Blue cheese waste gets concentrated via a chemical, enzymatic process that makes a very strong, very concentrated blue cheese paste.  This paste is used in blue cheese dips, dressings etc.  Of course, it could also be made from flavor, thcikers and emulsifying agents.  Both processes are workable.

[Cheese Head]

Francois, OK, thanks, small question, what do you mean by blue cheese waste? You make it and then sell or consume it, what waste?