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Fermentation Atlas

Cheese from Poland, Podhale and nearby Carpathian districts

Redykołka PDOredykołka

Unpasteurised sheep milk, with up to 40% cow milk, is soured, set with rennet in a wooden tub and broken up; the kneaded curd is pressed into small carved moulds shaped like animals, birds, hearts or spindles. The figures are brined up to a day, dried and cold-smoked for 3 to 7 days in the shepherd's hut. Made in 9 steps over 4.5 days – 9 days. The longest step, cold-smoke under the hut roof, takes 3–7 days (European Commission 2009). Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lacticaseibacillus casei, Limosilactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus acidophilus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3–7 daysSet[oj-redyk2009]Cold-smoke under the hut roof
Temperature30 °CReported[paciorek2001]Rennet and set in the puciera

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceTraditional hut process with no fixed batch size. The smallest spindle-shaped cheeses weigh 30–60 g; other shapes may not exceed 300 g.
Sheep milk (Polish Mountain Sheep breed), unpasteurised · Ewes eat only fresh pasture plants during the season[oj-redyk2009]
Up to 40% of the milkCow milk (Polish Red breed)[oj-redyk2009]
Rennet[oj-redyk2009]
Brine · Cheeses soak up to 24 h[oj-redyk2009]
Wood smoke · Cold smoke from the hut's hearth[oj-redyk2009]
Starterspontaneous souring of the raw milk, then rennet

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.5 days – 9 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: raw milk of mountain sheep, with some cow milk allowed

Step 1 of 9
Milk the ewes on the summer pasture
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactococcus lactis
L. mesenteroides
Lacticaseibacillus casei
L. fermentum

Made only in the grazing season (May to September), in huts on the mountain pastures where the sheep graze.

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

What makes this one different

Redykołka is made in the same huts and the same way as oscypek, but from small amounts of curd pressed into miniature figures of 30–300 g rather than the large oscypek spindle. Its shapes come from its use as a gift.

Milk
Unpasteurised sheep milk, with up to 40% cow milk
Shape
Small animals, birds, hearts or spindles, pressed in carved moulds
Smoking
Cold smoke for 3–7 days
Composition
At most 44% water, at least 56% dry matter, at least 38% fat in dry matter

Related ferments

Safety

Redykołka is made from unpasteurised milk and ripens only during a few days of smoking. ANSES advises pregnant women, young children, people over 65 and people with weak immunity not to eat raw-milk cheeses other than hard cooked ones, because of Listeria, Salmonella and Shiga-toxin E. coli.

Hazards the sources name: Staphylococcus aureus (DNA in one redykołka sample).

History and sources

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

The cheese came to Podhale with Wallachian shepherds. The specification cites the 1416 charter of Ochotnica, granted to Dawid Wołoch, as an early record of cheese-making in the region, and a 1748 instruction from the Ślemień estate as the first detailed account of making cheese in shepherd huts. Redykołki were given away free, often to children, when the flocks returned home from the pastures (the "redyk"). They were made and given in pairs, and cheese doves and cockerels decorated wedding staffs and harvest wreaths. It became a PDO in 2009.

  1. [oj-redyk2009] European Commission 2009, Single document «Redykołka» (PL-PDO-005-0588), Official Journal of the European Union C 103, 5 May 2009, pp. 21–25 (Polish; copy hosted by infor.pl)spec
  2. [nalepa2022] Nalepa B., Markiewicz L.H. 2022, Microbiological biodiversity of regional cow, goat and ewe milk cheeses produced in Poland and antibiotic resistance of lactic acid bacteria isolated from them, Animals 13(1):168 (three unsmoked redykołka samples)paper
  3. [paciorek2001] Paciorek A., Bonczar G. 2001, Jakość oszczypków z uwzględnieniem oceny mleka owczego i żentycy, Żywność 1(26) (oscypek making in three Podhale huts)paper
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov