Soft

What is Soft Cheese?

Soft cheese is one of the practical groupings consumer guides use alongside fresh, semi-soft, firm, hard and blue. The categories rest on texture, aging and moisture. Classifying cheese by moisture or firmness is common but inexact, and factors other than water matter: a higher fat content softens a cheese because fat interferes with the protein network that gives it structure, and pH and salt levels play a part too.

Soft cheeses are produced in a cool, humid environment. They carry less pressure in the mold and far less time in the cave than hard cheeses. Maturation is short. Cream cheeses are not matured at all, Brie matures for no more than a month, and Neufchatel can be sold after ten days. Where mold is involved, soft-ripened cheeses start firm and chalky, then ripen from the outside inward as a bloom of Penicillium camemberti grows over the surface. Washed-rind cheeses ripen the same way but are cured repeatedly in salt brine or in solutions carrying beer, wine, brandy and spices.

The moisture content sits between 55 and 80 percent of dry weight, the highest of the moisture classes. Texture runs from smooth to runny or gooey. Surface mold leaves a flexible white crust on cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, while brine washing builds a firm rind and pungent smear bacteria that push the flavor further. Double cream versions of these cheeses are enriched with cream to 60 to 75 percent fat in dry matter, and triple creams to at least 75 percent.

Soft cheeses are often spreadable, but they do not generally melt or brown well, which sets them apart from the semi-hard cheeses that cooks reach for when they want a cheese to melt. Because of the water they hold, they spoil faster than hard cheeses and need to be kept cold to delay that.