Attention to details leads to high-quality provolone

With a buttery, piquant taste and velvety texture, provolone has long been a top choice for irresistible sandwiches. It’s a flavorful complement that elevates your everyday pizzas and pastas.  

American-made provolone cheese from Agropur is made with pride, resulting in its rich, award-winning flavor. It is one of our specialties. Firm and smooth, our provolone slices cleanly and offers a distinctive, mellow flavor.

It’s deliciously different. Provolone offers an experience unlike other cheeses because its production has differences from other types of cheese.  

One key, differentiating step – the pasta filata process -- occurs near the finishing stages of the cheese make. The cheese is heated and stretched by auger.

“We’re melting and stretching the cheese and aligning the proteins, which gives you the texture of the cheese to be formed in its salami shape,” said Pat Doell, Cheese Production Supervisor at Agropur’s Luxemburg, WI, plant.

From the farm to your table, achieving a great provolone requires knowledge, experience and a watchful eye. There’s no better expert on provolone than Doell. A Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, his provolone was judged best in class at the 2022 World Championship Cheese Contest.

To start, a world-class provolone requires high-quality milk. After pasteurization, the milk flows to the cheese vat, where starter bacteria enter the mix.

“Here, we also add an enzyme called lipase, which is what gives the provolone its unique flavor,” Doell said.

Once the vat is full, rennet is added, which causes the milk to coagulate into a gel. Knowing when the gel reaches just the right level of firmness is one of several turning points that can influence the quality of the final product.

“When you gain experience, you start to gain an understanding of what you should be seeing at various points in the cheese make,” Doell said. “You need to know what to look for and how to make adjustments.”

When the consistency is just right, the curd is cut starting in a slow, careful manner as not to impact its moisture and fat content.

Cheesemakers cook the curd and whey, and in the process, the starter culture produces acids. Upon achieving the proper pH, the curd moves to a draining belt and travels ever closer to becoming provolone cheese.

Cheese lovers will recognize some similarities between provolone and mozzarella cheese -- they’re both white, Italian styles. Yet the contrasts become evident at first bite.

Doell said there are just a few small differences in the processes for making provolone and mozzarella. Those tiny departures, however, make a big difference in the end products. The addition of lipase for provolone is one of the major differences. Cooking times and temperatures are also slightly different, which results in a firmer consistency for provolone.

At the end of the draining belt, both mozzarella and provolone undergo the melting, stretching pasta filata process.  The proper cook temperature and auger screw speed are of utmost importance in giving the cheeses the right textures, Doell said.

For provolone, the stretchy, melty masses of soon-finished cheese are formed into salami shapes. They’re chilled, then soaked in a bath of brine for up to six hours. The brine provides a saltiness that accentuates the cheese’s flavor.  It also ensures the proper moisture content and acts as a preservative.

From there, it’s ready for packaging – and soon enough, enjoyment.

The cheese make can take more than three hours from the milk vat to the brine tank. Every step along the way must be just right to achieve a cheese of award-level quality.

“The smallest, tiniest details can make the difference between a good piece of cheese and a great piece of cheese,” Doell said.

Doell pays close attention during every make.

Agropur is the cheesemaker of choice for high-quality provolone, offering several varieties and custom formulations. Click here to learn more about provolone from Agropur.