Two young cheesemakers take charge at Eng Alm

Two young women have taken over responsibility for the dairy at Eng Alm, an alpine pasture at the foot of the Karwendel mountains in Tyrol, ORF reports. Carina Nutz and Magdalena Lorenze process milk from up to 250 cows, with as much as 6,000 litres turned into cheese, butter and yoghurt on peak days.

Eng Alm is one of Tyrol’s largest milking alpine pastures by area and by the number of animals brought there for the summer. Although it lies in Tyrol, it can only be reached through Germany. The road runs via the Sylvenstein reservoir into the Hinterriss valley and on to Eng, where the huts and barns of eight farms stand among more than 2,000 mountain maple trees.

Nutz worked last summer alongside cheesemaker Eduard Radinger, who had shaped production there for 16 summers. This year, she is continuing his work with 20-year-old Lorenze.

Lorenze trained at the Plangger dairy in Niederndorf and last summer processed milk from about 170 animals at an alpine pasture in the Bernese Oberland. Nutz entered the profession after studying business psychology and working in recruitment for several years. An earlier summer spent as a student at a small alpine pasture in Bad Hofgastein prompted her to change careers. She completed dairy training alongside her work at the Ettal dairy and joined Eng Alm after passing her journeyman’s examination. The two women met during a master’s course for dairy technologists.

The cheesemakers are responsible for processing all of the farms’ milk. “It is the farmers’ entire capital. It is the milk, the cows and the economic viability of the whole Eng Alm,” Nutz said. Both women are employed by the Eng Alm agricultural association.

Their working day begins at 3.30am. Production runs at full pace until midday, followed by cleaning, maintenance and the intake of evening milk. They are also supported by trainee Maria Lindner, who attends the Rotholz agricultural college and helps care for the cheese. Some wheels, including the Ahornkönig, weigh up to 35 kilograms. At the beginning of the summer, production reached as many as 18 wheels a day.

The work continues seven days a week because the cows produce milk every day. The cheesemakers make Tiroler Almkäse g.U., Tiroler Graukäse g.U., hand-shaped sour cream butter, various hard cheeses, yoghurt and quark. The products are also supplied to the rest hut at Eng Alm.

During the previous summer, more than 600,000 litres of milk were processed over 134 days into almost 60 tonnes of cheese and about 6,000 kilograms of butter. “You look forward to the alpine summer all year, but at the end of it you are also happy that it is over,” Lorenze said.