Svecia is a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

. It is a semi-hard cow

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

's-milk cheese, with a creamy consistency, light yellow colour, small irregular holes, and a mildly acidic taste. It is produced in wax

Wax

thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

-covered cylinders weighing 12 to 15 kilograms each.

The cheese is similar to other Swedish hard cheeses whose manufacturing methods date back to perhaps the 13th century, but the name Svecia — from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 Suecia meaning "Sweden" — is a 20th-century invention, dating to 1920.

Svecia is produced in a fashion typical to many semi-hard cheeses. Milk is pasteurized

Pasteurization

Pasteurization is a process of heating a food, usually liquid, to a specific temperature for a definite length of time, and then cooling it immediately. This process slows microbial growth in food...

 to 72°C then cooled to around 30°. Rennet

Rennet

Rennet is a complex of enzymes produced in any mammalian stomach to digest the mother's milk, and is often used in the production of cheese. Rennet contains many enzymes, including a proteolytic enzyme that coagulates the milk, causing it to separate into solids and liquid...

 is added to coagulate the milk into curds and lactic acid enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

s are added to replace enzymes and bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

 killed during pasteurization. The curd is cut, stirred, and slowly drained, then heated back up to a temperature near 40° to drive off more moisuture. After salt

Edible salt

Salt, also known as table salt, or rock salt, is a mineral that is composed primarily of sodium chloride , a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of ionic salts. It is essential for animal life in small quantities, but is harmful to animals and plants in excess...

 is added, the curds are packed into moulds, loosely enough to leave the air pockets which make up Svecia's tiny holes. After a soak in brine

Brine

Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...

, bringing the total salt content of the cheese to 1.0–1.5 percent by weight, the cheese is aged in a dry environment for at least two months — sometimes up to more than a year.