Which is faster: a hand-held mixer, a butter churn or a whisk? In the Animal Food Products II - Milk and Dairy Products module in the 2019/20 winter semester, students studying Food Safety at Hochschule Geisenheim University not only acquired the theoretical principles of, but also gained practical experience in the production of dairy products. Under the guidance of lecturers Doris Häge, M.Sc., from the Enology Department and Dr. Eva Spindler-Raffel from the Food Safety Department, they produced butter, ricotta and a type of Feta-like cheese. The Schwälbchen Molkerei Jakob Berz AG dairy in Bad Schwalbach generously provided the students with milk for the cheese and cream for the butter.

The students learned about the differences between sweet and sour whey products, which were covered in the lecture, through the practical production of sweet cream butter, ricotta and a Feta-like cheese. They tested the differences between cheese production methods with and without starter cultures and also learned how the curdling process works. The students subsequently tasted all the products produced and evaluated them from a sensory perspective under Doris Häge's expert guidance.