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Fermented milk from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus

Ryazhenkaряжанка

Ryazhenka is milk held near boiling for hours until it turns cream-coloured, then cooled and soured with a thermophilic lactic culture. The Russian standard defines it as a fermented milk made from baked (toplyonoe) milk.

Fully documentedFermented milk7.5 h – 12 h

Recipe

Ryazhenka, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Off-shell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedIndustrial process with no fixed batch size. The standard sets the product, not the amounts; home makers once used smetana as the starter instead of a culture.
Cow's milk or milk productsNormalised to the target fat; the standard allows from under 0.5 % to 8.9 % fat[gost31455]
Thermophilic lactic streptococci, with or without Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricusThe starter the standard requires[gost31455]
Starterthermophilic lactic streptococci, with or without Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (industrial); smetana in the old home method

Total time across the recorded steps: 7.5 h – 12 h

Start
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94–98 °C

What changes: The milk is homogenised and pasteurised before baking

Step 1 of 5
Homogenise and pasteurise the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
94–98 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. delbrueckii

Output: pasteurised, normalised milk.

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

Ryazhenka is milk held near boiling for hours until it turns cream-coloured, then cooled and soured with a thermophilic lactic culture. The Russian standard defines it as a fermented milk made from baked (toplyonoe) milk. Made in 5 steps over 7.5 h – 12 h. The longest step, ferment warm, takes 4–6 h (Glazunova E.S 2022) and runs at 38–42 °C (Glazunova E.S 2022). Thermophilic lactic streptococci and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step4–6 hReported[urgau2022]Ferment warm
Temperature38–42 °CReported[urgau2022]Ferment warm

What makes this one different

Ryazhenka is soured from baked milk (toplyonoe moloko), milk held near boiling for hours before the starter goes in. The standard describes its colour as light cream.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Home ryazhenkaMilk baked in a clay pot in a traditional oven for about a day and soured with smetana.
  • VarenetsA related Russian fermented baked milk.

Safety

The milk is pasteurised and then held near boiling for hours, and the finished product is kept at 4 ± 2 °C.

History and sources

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

Russian and Soviet sources called it "Little Russian" or Ukrainian ryazhenka and credit Ukrainian cuisine with its origin.

  1. [gost31455] GOST 31455-2012, Ryazhenka. Technical conditions (interstate standard, in force from 1 July 2013)spec
  2. [urgau2022] Glazunova E.S., Bykova O.A. 2022, Comparative analysis of the fermented baked milk "Today and always" and "White city", Ural State Agrarian University (process outline)paper
  3. [wp] Wikipedia, Ryazhenka (history and home method only)wiki