Armenian String Cheese
Chechil, also called Armenian string cheese, is a brined pasta filata cheese from Armenia, sold as bundles of thick or thin fibrous threads that are often tied into ropes, braids or balls. It is frequently smoked and tastes sharp and sour with moderate salt.
Key Facts
| Country of Origin | Armenia |
| Specific Origin | Armenia |
| Milk Type | Cow's, goat's or sheep's milk |
| Milk Treatment | Soured skimmed milk |
| Fat Content | Up to 10% in dry matter |
| Moisture Content | No more than 60% |
| Texture | Semi-soft |
| Flavor | Mild |
| Colors | White to faintly yellow in unsmoked versions |
| Forms | Thick or thin threads gathered into a tight bundle, tied ropes, braids or balls |
| Age | 1 to 2 days in factories, longer in brine when made by hand |
| Rennet Type | Animal |
| Also Known As | Syrian String Cheese, Chechil |
What is Armenian String Cheese?
Chechil comes from Armenia and sits between rennet cheeses and sour-milk cheeses. It is sometimes grouped with the suluguni family. Industrial production today happens mostly across the post-Soviet countries, though the cheese turns up anywhere Armenian communities settled.
Making it starts with soured skimmed milk, cow, sheep, goat or a mixture, though modern dairies work mainly with low-fat cow's milk. Rennet or pepsin goes into milk at 45 to 50 degrees Thorner for cow's and 100 to 110 for sheep's. The mix rests 5 to 10 minutes at 38 to 40 C, and once a curd sets, the mass is stirred and heated to 48 to 54 C. The large flakes stick together by hand, get separated from the whey, and are shaped on a table into long threads or an arc-shaped ribbon. Factories use cheese vats, whey separators and a screw-forming machine that breaks the curd, stretches the fibers, heats and melts the mass, and shapes the final product. After cooling, the threads are wound into bundles, rinsed in cold water and moved to brine of 16 to 19 percent.
Unsmoked chechil runs from white to faintly yellow. Fat in dry matter reaches only 10 percent and moisture stays at or below 60 percent, with salt at 4 to 8 percent. The flavor is sharp and sour-milky. Ripening works differently here than in most rennet cheeses: microbe numbers peak at one day old and then drop fast, with activity almost halted by day 20, an effect of the high acidity, quick cooling and quick salting. Lactobacillus casei dominates instead of the lactococci found in rennet cheeses.
Plants pack the cheese in sealed wrapping after one or two days and ship it out. Made the traditional way, it keeps in brine for its whole shelf life, or in jugs and sheepskin bags mixed with curd and other cheeses. Cheap milk, a short cycle and simple technology keep costs low, and affordable automated lines for figured cheeses in the late 1990s and early 2000s drove a sharp rise in output across the CIS, with the Giaginsky and Ruzayevsky dairies among the notable producers. The name is now borrowed for other cheeses cut into threads or spaghetti and wound into ropes and braids.
How Does Armenian String Cheese Compare?
The most relevant cheeses to compare Armenian String Cheese against.
