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Weihenstephan Dairy Workshop with Milk Tasting I recently had the pleasure of participating in Weihenstephan's first digital milk workshop. Over several hours, in a fascinating online session with Weihenstephan, milk sommelier Arno Steguweit, and professional chef Hans Gerlach, we tasted and compared milk and cooked with various Weihenstephan products. Since the Weihenstephan milk tasting was particularly impressive, I want to share the milk tasting guide for home use and pass on some milk-related knowledge.

Not all milk is created equal – start your own milk tasting!

Learning to distinguish and taste different types of milk

Everyone who enjoys a glass of milk now and then knows that "not all milk is created equal." Every milk tastes different and has its own unique characteristics. Personally, I declared Weihenstephan my favorite milk many years ago. Fresh, long-life, and lactose-free milks taste very different when you pay close attention to the nuances, and the varying fat content further contributes to their distinct flavor profiles.

Here I am trying the 0.1% Weihenstephan UHT milk.

To recognize and "taste" the differences between various types of milk, there are specific rules and procedures that allow us to find our favorite milk and distinguish between them. During the online Weihenstephan milk tasting, I learned from sensory expert Arno Steguweit how milk is tasted and what is important in the process.

First and foremost, it's important to know that milk unfolds its full aroma best when you not only taste it, but also smell and touch it. If you close your eyes and concentrate entirely on the olfactory experience, you'll smell meadows, hay, and delicate, sweet, creamy almond butter. When you taste it, you'll discover a creamy, full-bodied texture along with mineral notes – try it for yourself, consciously and deliberately. Alongside a cool freshness, nutty and herbal aromas also unfold – all within a single sip of milk.

We've all experienced the typical (and rather unpleasant) cooked taste of UHT milk, which can be watery and bland. These unpleasant characteristics develop when milk is heated for too long or at too high a temperature. Weihenstephan UHT milk has become one of my favorites because it doesn't have this cooked taste. It's ultra-high-temperature heated for only a very short time (three seconds) using a particularly gentle process. This results in a particularly fresh, vibrant, creamy, and subtly nutty flavor. The high quality of the delicate raw milk used by Weihenstephan also contributes to this unmistakably fresh taste.

Conclusion/Overview of the Milk Tasting

Your milk tasting at home – here's how!

To conduct a proper tasting at home, you'll need at least two stemmed glasses. You'll compare the fat content of each type of milk (fresh milk, UHT milk, lactose-free milk), for example, comparing 1.51% fat fresh milk with 1.51% fat UHT milk. Personally, I find it even more interesting to have more glasses on hand and to compare across different fat levels, tasting the fresh and UHT milk again directly at several different fat levels. In my tasting, I used seven different glasses of milk.

It's best to start with the lowest fat content, i.e., the 0.11% fat UHT milk. Round two compares the 1.5% fat UHT milk with the 1.5% fat fresh milk; round three does the same with 3.5% fat. In the final round, you'll taste the lactose-free UHT milk with 1.5% fat and 3.5% fat. Regardless of which milk you're tasting, make sure it's between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius. Personally, I found it incredibly interesting how vastly different each type tastes when you really focus on it.

I can understand that your mouths are watering...uh...the milk is making your mouths water.

Here on the left of the image, you'll find some helpful information about the flavor profiles and the conclusions of milk sommelier Arno Steguweit, who provided a summary of his feedback on each milk. This overview can help you get a feel for the milk and compare your own impressions.

And what was cooked?

Of course, I didn't leave you high and dry, culinary-wise either. Following the milk tasting, we got cooking under the direction of a professional chef. Hans Gerlach was the second expert on board and guided us through the recipes course by course, step by step. As a professional in recipe development, food styling, and food photography, he gave us numerous great tips during the course. We started with a "Greek Mountain Tea Apple Chai Latte"—absolutely delicious, and the mountain tea was a completely new taste experience for me. I'll definitely be making it again. After the delicious chai latte, we moved on to the main course, "Broccoli with Chestnut Béchamel"—now I can make a really good béchamel sauce on my own. For dessert, we had my favorite: "Revisited Braided Yeast Bread" with plum jam, blueberries, espresso beans, and raw cane sugar.

Each recipe calls for Weihenstephan milk and Weihenstephan butter. The recipes are easy to follow and showcase the versatility of Weihenstephan. Download the Recipes from the Weihenstephan Dairy Workshop The best thing to do is download the recipe and try it out yourself. It's worth it! I hope you enjoy tasting and cooking.

If you'd like to browse through my previous articles and learn more about Weihenstephan, you can... here click through my archive.

+++ This article was created in cooperation with the Weihenstephan dairy. Thank you! +++

Weihenstephan Dairy Workshop

Get your Weihenstephan milk tasting guide for home use here.

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