Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Fermented milk from Germany, Austria

Dickmilch (Setzmilch, Stockmilch)Dickmilch

Dickmilch is German set sour milk. Once it was raw milk left to sour and thicken on its own; today pasteurised milk is soured with mesophilic lactic bacteria, set in its cup and never heated again. German law sets at least 3.5 % fat for the standard kind.

Fully documentedFermented milk12 h – 20 h

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedDairy standard with no recipe amounts; the rules fix the fat content and the kind of culture.
Cow's milkAt least 3.5 % fat for Dickmilch, 1.5–1.8 % for the low-fat kind, at most 0.5 % for the skimmed kind[milchpqv]
Mesophilic lactic acid bacteria cultureThe defining culture of the German Sauermilch group[milchpqv][codexb32]
Startermesophilic lactic bacteria culture (dairy) or the milk's own bacteria (traditional raw milk)

Total time across the recorded steps: 12 h – 20 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
at least 85 °C

What changes: The milk is heated above 85 °C for a few minutes

Step 1 of 4
Heat the milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
at least 85 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactococcus lactis

In the old household way raw milk was left to sour without heating. Output: heat-treated 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

Dickmilch is German set sour milk. Once it was raw milk left to sour and thicken on its own; today pasteurised milk is soured with mesophilic lactic bacteria, set in its cup and never heated again. German law sets at least 3.5 % fat for the standard kind. Made in 4 steps over 12 h – 20 h. The longest step, set in the cup, takes 12–20 h (Österreichisches Lebensmittelbuch 2018) and runs at 20–45 °C (Österreichisches Lebensmittelbuch 2018). Mesophilic lactic acid bacteria and Lactococcus lactis and L. lactis subsp. cremoris do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12–20 hReported[codexb32]Set in the cup
Temperature20–45 °CReported[codexb32]Set in the cup

What makes this one different

Dickmilch is soured with mesophilic (moderate-temperature) lactic bacteria, where yoghurt uses the thermophilic yoghurt culture, and it is set in its cup rather than stirred.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fettarme DickmilchLow-fat kind, 1.5–1.8 % fat (MilchPQV).
  • Dickmilch entrahmt (Dickmagermilch)Skimmed kind, at most 0.5 % fat (MilchPQV).
  • SahnedickmilchMade from cream, at least 10.0 % fat (MilchPQV).
  • Regional servingNorth Germany with sugar and crumbled black bread or rusk; Southern Hesse and Hanover chilled with cinnamon and sugar (de.wikipedia).

Safety

The milk is heated before souring and the product is not heated afterwards, so the cultures stay alive. The old household way soured raw milk with no heating. The CDC warns that raw-milk foods can carry Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella and Salmonella, and that good farm practice cannot guarantee their absence. It advises choosing pasteurised milk and dairy products.

History and sources

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

The German Milchproduktqualitätsverordnung of 24 November 2025 lists "Sauermilch dickgelegt" (Dickmilch, Setzmilch) as a standard sour-milk product. Its transitional rule (§ 67) lets products labelled under the earlier Milcherzeugnisverordnung, as in force on 13 June 2026, be sold until stocks run out.

  1. [milchpqv] Germany, Verordnung über Qualitätsanforderungen an Milchprodukte (Milchproduktqualitätsverordnung, MilchPQV) of 24.11.2025, BGBl. 2025 I Nr. 280, in force from 14.06.2026, Anlage 8 group I Sauermilcherzeugnis and § 67 (consolidated text, Bundesamt für Justiz)spec
  2. [codexb32] Österreichisches Lebensmittelbuch, IV. Auflage, Codexkapitel B 32 Milch und Milchprodukte (version of 18.1.2018), section 6 Fermentierte Milcherzeugnisse (web.archive.org copy)spec
  3. [wp-de] de.wikipedia, Dickmilchwiki
  4. [cdc-raw-milk] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Raw Milk (food safety page)gov