Asino cheese, traditionally made in some mountain areas of NE Italy, acquires its typical flavour by long salting (2-4 months, depending on cheese wt.) in a special salting brine (called "salmuerie") in which a dilute brine (approx. 4% w/w NaCl) is mixed with cheese whey and cream from natural creaming. This brine is kept in wooden vats and never totally renewed, although its contents are periodically adjusted by addition of various components and frequently oxygenated by mixing. This enables the biochemical reactions involved, primarily with the cream lipids but probably also with fat from the immersed cheese, to occur. These reactions are discussed, particularly from the viewpoint of the development of free fatty acids (FFA) in the brine. The FFA, together with the salt, migrate from the brine into the cheese by osmosis. Study of the ripening process of cheeses in the brine and cheeses ripened in a traditional store proved that the reactions occurring in the special brine yielded the compounds mainly responsible for the flavour of Asino cheese.
