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Cheese from Germany, southern Germany and especially Bavaria

Romadur

Whole or partly skimmed cow milk is set with lactic starter and rennet as for Limburger, cut, and drained in sectioned forms into small loaves. The cheeses are rubbed with dry salt several times over 12 hours, then ripen with a light yellow-brown to reddish smear at a lower temperature and for less time than Limburger, giving a smaller, milder cheese of 80–180 g.

Fully documentedCheese8.5 days – 15 daysStandard variety (Standardsorte) of the German Cheese Ordinance (Käseverordnung, Anlage 1)Family: Washed-rind (smear-ripened) cheese family (Munster and Époisses as templates)

Recipe

Romadur, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: MarkusHagenlocher at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedSources give conditions, not a batch recipe; about 12 lb of cured cheese comes from 100 lb of whole milk.
Cow milk, whole or partly skimmed, sometimes coloured[usda-hb54]
Lactic starter and rennet, as for Limburger[usda-hb54]
Dry salt, rubbed on the surface[usda-hb54]
Starterlactic starter

Total time across the recorded steps: 8.5 days – 15 days

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
30–33 °C

What changes: Lactic starter and rennet go into the warm cow milk

Step 1 of 5
Set the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
30–33 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Brevibacterium linens
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
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

Whole or partly skimmed cow milk is set with lactic starter and rennet as for Limburger, cut, and drained in sectioned forms into small loaves. The cheeses are rubbed with dry salt several times over 12 hours, then ripen with a light yellow-brown to reddish smear at a lower temperature and for less time than Limburger, giving a smaller, milder cheese of 80–180 g. Made in 5 steps over 8.5 days – 15 days. The longest step, ripen with a smear, takes 8–14 days (Wikipedia (German)) and runs at 6–7 °C (Sanders G.P. 1953). Lactic starter bacteria (Säurewecker) in the milk; no species named and Surface yeasts, which lower the acidity first, followed by Bacterium linens (now Brevibacterium linens), described for the Limburger smear do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8–14 daysReported[wiki-de][usda-hb54]Ripen with a smear
Temperature6–7 °CReported[usda-hb54]Ripen with a smear

What makes this one different

The small, mild form of Limburger, with less salt, less smear and a shorter, cooler ripening.

Weight
80 to 180 g under the Cheese Ordinance (Limburger 180 to 1000 g)
Fat classes
Half-fat to double-cream, 35 to 52 % fat in dry matter
Moisture
48.5 to 55.5 % moisture; fat 47 % of solids in whole-milk Romadur (1953)

Related ferments

Safety

A 1953 USDA handbook says raw-milk Limburger is cured at least 60 days. It gives no such figure for Romadur and says only that it is cured for a shorter time. If Romadur is made from raw milk, note that ANSES ranks soft washed-rind cheeses just after the main raw-milk cheese sources of Listeria, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, and advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than pressed cooked ones such as Gruyère or Comté.

History and sources

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

Romadur shares its origin with Limburger, which was first made in the Liège area of Belgium and named after the market town of Limburg [usda-hb54]. German Wikipedia says Carl Hirnbein introduced Romadur to the Allgäu in the 1830s, as he did Limburger [wiki-de]. In Germany it is a standard variety of the Cheese Ordinance [kasev].

  1. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov
  2. [usda-hb54] Sanders G.P. 1953, Cheese varieties and descriptions, USDA Agriculture Handbook 54 (Romadur; Limburger)archive
  3. [kasev] Käseverordnung (KäseV), Anlage 1 Standardsorten, version valid until 9 June 2021 (consolidated copy on buzer.de)gov
  4. [wiki-de] Wikipedia (German), 'Romadur' (production, ripening, introduction to the Allgäu)wiki