German Quark
Please note: If you are planning to make yogurt with raw milk, please refer to our raw milk yogurt guide. We recommend activating your yogurt cultures with pasteurized milk. Ideally, You will also culture the next three batches with pasteurized milk; your cultures have been dormant, so it’s gentlest to give the little guys a chance to wake up and thrive.
NOTE: In some cases, your culture will be a bit sluggish when you first activate it. You’ll know this happened if it is too thin or runny, or if it has some lumps and some milk. Just keep keepin’ on, and it should be ducky by the the third batch. Don’t forget to check out our FAQ for answers to common issues!
Activating The Thermophilic Quark Starter Culture
Slowly heat 1 cup of pasteurized milk to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the lowest setting your stove has, or a crockpot on the lowest setting. To prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan, you can rub an ice cube along the bottom or you can pour a bit of water into the pan, swirl, and pour the excess off. Add the milk as usual.
**Alternatively, you can use up to 2 cups of milk to activate the quark starter. Do not be surprised if the first batch of yogurt is liquid when activating with one quart of milk. To minimize waste as you build your culture up, we recommend one cup - the more milk you use, the more liquid your first batch will be. There is no hard and true method to activate your cultures, so you do you.
Remove the milk from the heat and allow to cool to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pour cooled milk into a container and add the entire packet of starter culture. Mix well.
Cover the mixture and incubate at 100-110 degrees for 5-12 hours in a yogurt maker or similar appliance. If you choose to incubate in a cooler or in the oven with the light turned on (wrap your closed container in blankets first!), this process will take up to 24 hours. You can just set an alarm and come back in 24, if you like.
Check after 5 hours to see if it has set. If it has not set, leave it for up to 12 hours, checking every 30-60 minutes. Once it has set, or at the end of 12 hours (whichever comes first), turn off the yogurt maker, cover the yogurt and allow it to cool for 2 hours. If you’re using a cooler, you’ll do the same thing, though the cooler generally takes more time. For those of us on the team with bad memories and a tendency to “dismiss” alarms, we take our starter culture for the next batch out now and store it separately.
Refrigerate the yogurt for at least 6 hours. You can eat it at any time (refrigerating helps set the quark). If you want to eat some of your warm quark, dew eet!
Making Regular Batches Of Quark
Slowly heat 1 quart of pasteurized milk to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Use the lowest setting your stove has. To prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan, you can rub an ice cube along the bottom or pour a bit of water into the pan, swirl, and pour the excess off. Add the milk as usual.
Remove the milk from the heat and allow to cool to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
Add 4 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) of yogurt from the previous batch and mix well. The ratio here is one tablespoon of culture per cup of milk.
Pour the milk into the container(s), cover the mixture, and culture for 5-8 hours at 110 degrees Fahrenheit. After 5 hours, check the yogurt frequently by tilting the jar gently. If the yogurt moves away from the side of the jar in one mass instead of running up the side, it is finished culturing.
Once it has set, allow it to cool for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, refrigerate it for at least 6 hours before eating.
Don’t forget to save a couple tablespoons for culturing the next batch!
Tips And Tricks
Should you have any problems with your quark starter, please email us prior to throwing the starter away.
We can probably help you save it.
We like to ferment our quark in pint or quart-sized mason jars. This makes it easier once it’s done culturing. Just lid the containers and set on the counter to cool for the 2 hours. There is no need to transfer to another container at the end of the ferment. We find that the quart and pint sized jars fit very well in the DASH bulk yogurt makers. To make serving size portions, the pint sized jars are perfect and fit very well in an instant pot over the rack. If using an instant pot, the pint sized fit perfectly on top of the rack!
For larger batches: You can make up to 2 quarts of quark per container, but keep your ratios consistent - too much quark starter can lead to bitter, grainy quark.
Never buy quark again! Heirloom quark can be cultured over and over again. This means that if you take care of your culture, you never have to buy yogurt again! To keep your culture viable, you must try to make your next batch of yogurt within 5-7 days. After that time frame, the culture can start to die off and may not be healthy enough to re-culture. Heirloom quark can seriously reculture for centuries.