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Cheese from Austria, Carinthia

Glundner Käse (Glundner Kas)Glundner Kas

Dry low-fat quark is crumbled and left covered at room temperature for two to three days until it turns glassy and smells sharp. It is then salted, spiced with caraway and melted in hot clarified butter while it is stirred hard ('linden'), until it flows as one mass. Poured into a bowl and chilled, it sets to a spreadable or sliceable cheese.

Fully documentedCheese2 days – 3 daysnone (Austrian register of traditional foods, no. 190; a Kochkäse in the Austrian Food Codex, chapter B 32)Family: Ripened acid-curd cheese family (Harzer, Olomoucké tvarůžky, Gamalost)

Recipe

Glundner Käse (Glundner Kas), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Superbass, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe traditional recipe in the Austrian register, for 1 kg of dry quark.
Dry crumbly quark (Bröseltopfen, dry home-made Topfen)1 kg[bmluk-glundner]
Clarified butter (Butterschmalz) or butter100 g[bmluk-glundner]
Salt10 g[bmluk-glundner]
Caraway2 teaspoons[bmluk-glundner]
Fresh quark, folded in at the enda handful (optional)[bmluk-glundner]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 days – 3 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaS. thermophilusL. delbrueckii2–3 days

What changes: The crumbled quark ripens for two to three days until it turns glassy and smells sharp

Step 1 of 4
Crumble and ripen the quark
Time
2–3 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
S. thermophilus
L. delbrueckii
Flavour
sharp, pungent smell when ready
Texture
crumbly at first, then glassy and slippery
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Dry low-fat quark is crumbled and left covered at room temperature for two to three days until it turns glassy and smells sharp. It is then salted, spiced with caraway and melted in hot clarified butter while it is stirred hard ('linden'), until it flows as one mass. Poured into a bowl and chilled, it sets to a spreadable or sliceable cheese. Made in 4 steps over 2 days – 3 days. The longest step, crumble and ripen the quark, takes 2–3 days (Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtscha…). Salt is 1 % (Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtscha…). Lactic acid bacteria does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step2–3 daysReported[bmluk-glundner]Crumble and ripen the quark
Salt1 %Reported[bmluk-glundner]Salt and spice

What makes this one different

The ripened quark is melted in hot butter with caraway and stirred until it flows, instead of being shaped and ripened as small cheeses; the Codex groups it with the spreadable Kochkäse.

Codex type
A Kochkäse made from ripened quark; at least 51 % of its dry matter must come from quark dry matter
Dry matter
Spreadable Kochkäse needs at least 21 % dry matter at the lean level (up to 15 % fat in dry matter) and 30 % at the half-fat level
Appearance
Pale yellow to greenish outside; creamy and spreadable to firm and sliceable, depending on how it is made

Related ferments

Safety

For a related German-origin cooked cheese, Brazilian Kochkäse, one study of three ripening temperatures (15, 25 and 35 °C) found 15 °C gave the best ratio of lactic acid bacteria to undesirable groups, and another reports that final cooking at 90 °C was crucial for reducing the microbial load. The 2020 study notes that raw milk presents some safety concerns. These are findings on that cheese, not on Glundner.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The register says Carinthian farmers kept cattle and goats in the Neolithic and also used the milk to make sour-milk cheese.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [bmluk-glundner] Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft (BMLUK), Traditionelle Lebensmittel in Österreich, register no. 190, 'Glundner Käse (Glundner Kas)' (author Doris Reinthaler)gov
  2. [codex-b32] Österreichisches Lebensmittelbuch, IV. Auflage, Codexkapitel B 32 'Milch und Milchprodukte' (GZ 2022-0.436.082 of 9.1.2023, amended 30.6.2023), section 3.2.1.4.4 Kochkäse (web.archive.org copy of the WKO file)spec
  3. [schlei2020] Schlei K.P., Angioletti B.L., Fernandes de Carvalho L., Bertoli S.L., Ratto Reiter M.G., Krebs de Souza C. 2020, Influence of temperature on microbial growth during processing of kochkäse cheese made from raw and pasteurised milk, International Dairy Journal (abstract; a Brazilian cooked cheese of German origin, a related product)paper
  4. [dasilva2026] da Silva D.S.H., de Souza C.K., Prudêncio E.S., Meisen M.N., Acordi Menezes L.A., de Dea Lindner J., de Carvalho L.F. 2026, Metagenomic and physicochemical analysis of the artisanal production stages of Kochkäse cheese from raw and pasteurised milk, International Journal of Dairy Technology (abstract; a Brazilian cooked cheese of German origin, a related product)paper
  5. [wp-glundner] Wikipedia (German), 'Glundner Käse' (ripening of the Bröseltopfen, spices, serving)web