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Cheese from Austria, Styria

Murtaler Steirerkäs

Cow milk is soured by acid bacteria without rennet, and the quark is pressed out in linen sacks. The quark ripens two to three days in a covered bowl, stirred daily, until glassy and pungent; it is then salted, mixed with caraway and melted in hot butter with constant stirring. Poured into a bowl, it cools to a sliceable, elastic cheese.

Fully documentedCheese2 days – 3 daysnone (Austrian register of traditional foods, no. 64; a sliceable Kochkäse in the Austrian Food Codex, chapter B 32)Family: Ripened acid-curd cheese family (Harzer, Olomoucké tvarůžky, Gamalost)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe traditional home recipe in the Austrian register, for 1 kg of quark. No rennet, preservatives or colourings are used.
Quark (Topfen), pressed out1 kg[bmluk-murtaler]
Salt10 g[bmluk-murtaler]
Caraway (pepper is also used)1 tablespoon[bmluk-murtaler]
Butter or clarified butter (Butterschmalz)100 g[bmluk-murtaler]
Crumbly quark, stirred in before pouringa handful (optional)[bmluk-murtaler]
StarterAcid bacteria set the milk; no rennet is added.

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

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
Milk proteinGel (curd)

What changes: Acid bacteria alone set the milk, with no rennet

Step 1 of 5
Sour the milk without rennet
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The milk is set by acid bacteria alone, with no rennet added.

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

Cow milk is soured by acid bacteria without rennet, and the quark is pressed out in linen sacks. The quark ripens two to three days in a covered bowl, stirred daily, until glassy and pungent; it is then salted, mixed with caraway and melted in hot butter with constant stirring. Poured into a bowl, it cools to a sliceable, elastic cheese. Made in 5 steps over 2 days – 3 days. The longest step, ripen the quark, takes 2–3 days (Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtscha…). Salt is 1 % (Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtscha…).

Key numbers
Main step2–3 daysReported[bmluk-murtaler]Ripen the quark
Salt1 %Reported[bmluk-murtaler]Salt, spice and melt in butter

What makes this one different

Melted in butter after the quark ripens, so it is sliceable and elastic; the Ennstaler Steirerkas from the same province is not cooked and stays crumbly.

Fat levels
Sold lean (Mager) and at 25 % fat in dry matter
Dry matter
Sliceable Kochkäse needs at least 35 % dry matter at the lean level and 40 % at the half-fat level
Codex type
At least 51 % of a Kochkäse's dry matter comes from quark dry matter

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 that the cooking step cut the microbial counts; another reports 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 Murtaler Steirerkäs.

History and sources

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

Steirerkas was a staple for farmhands and miners by the 17th century; a copperplate in Hohberg's Georgica Curiosa (1682) shows Styrian cheesemaking. The Obersteirische Molkerei, founded in 1992/93, is now the largest maker. The Murtal tourism site says some direct sellers add butter and fold in pieces of spiced quark by hand, which show as white spots, and that the region has been the Genussregion Murtaler Steirerkäse for ten years.

Microbes
No study we found names its microbes.
  1. [bmluk-murtaler] Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft (BMLUK), Traditionelle Lebensmittel in Österreich, register no. 64, 'Murtaler Steirerkäs'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. [murtal-tourism] Erlebnisregion Murtal (Steiermark Tourismus), 'Steirerkäse', regional products pageweb
  4. [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
  5. [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