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Cheese from Germany and Austria

Quark

Skim milk is heated hard, cooled, and soured for about 16 hours with a mesophilic lactic culture and a very small dose of rennet until it sets at about pH 4.5–4.7. The soft curd is drained in cloth bags or, in dairies, spun in a separator, giving a fresh sour-milk cheese that is kept cold.

Fully documentedCheese36 h – 38 hFamily: Fresh lactic (acid-set) cheese family

Recipe

Quark, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: SKopp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe rennet dose is per 100 kg of milk; the culture dose is not given.
Skim milk[tetrapak-quarg]
Mesophilic lactic cultureThe handbook names Lactobacillus lactis/cremoris[tetrapak-quarg]
RennetAbout 1 ml liquid rennet per 100 kg milkAbout one tenth of a normal cheese dose[tetrapak-quarg]
Startermesophilic lactic culture plus a little rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 36 h – 38 h

Start
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85–95 °C

What changes: Skim milk is pasteurised at high heat, which also binds whey proteins into the curd

Step 1 of 5
Heat the skim milk
Time
5–15 min
Reported
Temperature
85–95 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus

Output: heated skim milk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

this is a high-temperature pasteurisation; Tetra Pak says pasteurisation must kill pathogenic bacteria but that spores survive it, and this one raises quark yield

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

Skim milk is heated hard, cooled, and soured for about 16 hours with a mesophilic lactic culture and a very small dose of rennet until it sets at about pH 4.5–4.7. The soft curd is drained in cloth bags or, in dairies, spun in a separator, giving a fresh sour-milk cheese that is kept cold. Made in 5 steps over 36 h – 38 h. The longest step, drain off the whey, takes 20 h (Lepesioti S 2021) and runs at 58–60 °C (Tetra Pak). Lactobacillus lactis/cremoris does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step20 hReported[lepesioti2021]Drain off the whey
Temperature58–60 °CReported[tetrapak-quarg]Drain off the whey
AciditypH 4.5–4.7Reported[tetrapak-quarg][lepesioti2021]Sour until the milk sets

What makes this one different

Quark is set mostly by acid, with only a tenth of a normal rennet dose, and is usually eaten unripened. Cottage cheese is also set mainly by acid, but Wikipedia describes its grains as chewier than quark, and quark is drained or separated into a smooth paste.

Milk
Usually skim milk
Setting
About 16 h to pH 4.5–4.7 with a mesophilic culture and a tenth of a normal rennet dose

Related ferments

Variants

  • TopfenThe Austrian name; Wikipedia lists Topfenstrudel as quark strudel, and notes that Austrian varieties hold less whey and are drier and more solid than German ones.
  • TvorogA drier fresh acid-curd cheese, closely related to quark and popular in Eastern and Central Europe.

Safety

In the dairy process described by Tetra Pak, the skim milk is heated at 85–95 °C for 5–15 minutes before souring, and the packed quark is cooled to a cold-store temperature below 8 °C.

History and sources

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

The German word Quark has been documented since the 14th century and is thought to come from a West Slavic word such as Polish twaróg. Wikipedia says Tacitus may describe it in Germania as lac concretum, though the phrase could also mean soured milk or another fresh cheese. In the 19th century quark was made entirely for home use. The Tetra Pak handbook says it was first drained in cloth bags and that most quark is now made by continuous concentration, mostly centrifugal separation.

  1. [tetrapak-quarg] Tetra Pak, Dairy Processing Handbook, chapter 16 Cheese, section Quargbook
  2. [lepesioti2021] Lepesioti S., Zoidou E., Lioliou D., Moschopoulou E., Moatsou G. 2021, Quark-type cheese: effect of fat content, homogenization, and heat treatment of cheese milk, Foods 10(1):184, doi:10.3390/foods10010184paper
  3. [milchpqv] Verordnung über Qualitätsanforderungen an Milchprodukte (Milchproduktqualitätsverordnung, MilchPQV), Germany, issued 24 November 2025, sections 29–32, 59 and Anlage 4 Abschnitt A (Speisequark)spec
  4. [wp] Wikipedia, Quark (dairy product)wiki