Lacto Bacilli: process and discussion

[maryjohn]

at what temperature is all this happening?

when i brew my EM I do it in a sealed container and try to keep it over 90F. you see a real slowdown below that temp.

I remember my dad doing yogurt in the oven overnight.

I mention powdered milk because that is what he used but come to think of it we were forced to drink that too. Also it is skim and it's easier not to deal with the lipids.

All our milk is pasteurized but if you have raw milk, that's awesome.

Lacto B can "deal with" O2, but that is not the same as using it. According to spiral it still produces lactic acid in the presence of O2, which indicates it is not using oxygen. If it were using oxygen, it would produce CO2 and water by using O2 to mop up the H and C.

I wonder if whats really at work is plain old agitation, which would explain the bubbling but also point to better alternatives that minimize O2 infiltration.

 

[rrog]

My farting around experiments here are only at 63 degrees now.

I do Yogurt in a water bath that starts at 110F and after 12 hours cools to 90F. I'm curious about trying this at warmer temps as you suggested.

I see in the initial write-up of all of this on page one the temps were spec'd at 68F to 77F, so I'm cooler by anyones standards.

I think anyone would agree that I'm just running too cool at the moment.

 

[JackTheGrower]

faster?

Lets see use whole grain rice? Warm temps and de-chlorinated water?

I don't know if I needed 7 days for the first go but I spent three to make the cheese.

I would think raw organic milk would be faster than pasteurized.

Not knowing much about this, my first impression was 7 days of rice water made a nice brew. Didn't need 7 days for cheese.

In a 5 gallon bucket a small air pump may keep oxygen in a good range for lactoB.. It's not as stinky now.

 

[rrog]

faster?

Lets see use whole grain rice? Warm temps and de-chlorinated water?

Yes, no and Yes

I don't know if I needed 7 days for the first go but I spent three to make the cheese.

I know what you mean. 7 hours can turn milk to solid yogurt.

I would think raw organic milk would be faster than pasteurized.

My yogurt recipe calls for cooked milk to 180F. So I do this. Pasteurization is at 161F. Not sure what the cooking is doing. Maybe partial breakdown of milk making more accessible for LactoB. Not sure. Maybe other methods don't pre-cook. I may look into that.

In a 5 gallon bucket a small air pump may keep oxygen in a good range for lactoB.. It's not as stinky now.

Jack, I'm confused. Are you bubbling the LactoB or just commenting on it?

Thanks

 

[h.h.]

From what I have read(Googled), LBB leaves acetic acid (viniger) which will form hydrogen peroxide which kills LBA. Bubbling should kill LBB, but not LBA leaving more room, more food, and no H2O2 thus a friendlier environment for the LBA to thrive.
Yogurt culture is made with LBB with LBA later added for health reasons. Given time the LBB would kill the LBA. This would be why yogurt water would not be good. The goal is for a LB that produces only lactic acid.

 

[jaykush]

the two week time line is just a guide, it can be done much faster given certain environments. when temps are up its faster, when temps are down its slower. simple as that. in the summer i have batches of lacto b made in a week if not less. in the winter it takes the whole two weeks.

its not that complicated and it doesn't need to be.

 

[rrog]

its not that complicated and it doesn't need to be.

Agreed. Totally.

 

[rrog]

From what I have read(Googled), LBB leaves acetic acid (viniger) which will form hydrogen peroxide which kills LBA. Bubbling should kill LBB, but not LBA leaving more room, more food, and no H2O2 thus a friendlier environment for the LBA to thrive.
Yogurt culture is made with LBB with LBA later added for health reasons. Given time the LBB would kill the LBA. This would be why yogurt water would not be good. The goal is for a LB that produces only lactic acid.

H2. What's happening? Thanks for stopping in here. Not following the LBB and LBA. Sorry, what do they stand for?

 

[jaykush]

faster?

Lets see use whole grain rice?

yea you can use whole grain rice, your just providing a place for the microbes to set up, feed, multiply. the rice wash ( not the rice itself) just attracts microbes in the air and gets it started faster than plain water would. im sure you could use lots of things other than rice.

I don't know if I needed 7 days for the first go but I spent three to make the cheese.

it will be different for every single person making this, not one of us will end up with the same culture its not possible. so sometimes it takes 2 days sometimes it takes 7. even still it was good to follow the instructions, because once you get the basics down, you can start to fine tune it for your own uses(if you feel the need).

I would think raw organic milk would be faster than pasteurized.

i have used raw goats milk before, though i bet the cultures were different ( i don't know how to i.d. specific species) it worked the same from a visual perspective.

In a 5 gallon bucket a small air pump may keep oxygen in a good range for lactoB.. It's not as stinky now.

im stoned but i hope that doesn't mean you made 5 gallons! for most people even doing a 1/4 cup rice wash with the milk is enough, application rates are very diluted. i make enough for less than a gallon of final culture, and i need a lot more than most. it shouldn't be stinky, should smell slightly well....like slightly fermented yogurt.

 

[h.h.]

H2. What's happening? Thanks for stopping in here. Not following the LBB and LBA. Sorry, what do they stand for?

Different strains of lacto B that are in yogurt. Lactobacillus acidophilus and lactobacillus bulgaricus. I read there were 168 strains.
As discussed earlier there are lacto strains that can survive in air and others that do not. The ones that can't tolerate air produce acetic acid which is bad. Yogurt has the wrong kind of lacto B.
I stand to be corrected. I'll blame Google.

 

[maryjohn]

I drink Lifeway Kefir. it has

lactobacilli: casei (that's latin for cheese), lactis, acidophilus, plantarum (starting to sound like EM), rhamnosus

streptococci: diacetylactis, florentinus

Bifido bacteria: longum, breve

Leuconostoc cremoris.

 

[spiral]

Hey everyone. LB is good to a temp of 40 F. That is when it becomes active in the air and soil, in the springtime outdoors.

JK is right on. Brew times are way different. In winter I do 10 days for each step as opposed to summer which is 5 days. Thats for me anyway.

 

[jaykush]

In winter I do 10 days for each step as opposed to summer which is 5 days. Thats for me anyway.

and the only way to know this, is ACTUALLY DOING IT, over and over. again and again....

 

[spiral]

Heres an interesting article I found awhile ago.

Co-Existance of photosynthetic bacteria, Streptomyces and Lactic Acid Bacteria in solutions of Effective Microorganisms

From EM Laboratory, International Nature Farming Research Center, Shizuoka,Japan

Abstract
The coexistance of photosynthetic bacteria, lactic acid bacteria and streptomyces, as required for the production of solutions of Effective Microorganisms (EM) is difficult,due to the different environments required by these species. However , the production of EM required that they coexist together. Hence studies were conducted to evaluate possible methods of developing an environment conductive for the coexistance of these three species as required for EM.
The presence of Lactobacillus plantarum,icreased acidity of the media which was not conducive for the other two species. In contrast, culturing of photosynthetic bacteria with streptomyces in a fish extract medium proved a possible alternative for the coexistance of these two species.Therafter, the inclusion of lactic acid bacteria to this medium with molasses and shaking the culture under dark conditions at 30 deg. C proved to be the best condition for the coexistance of these three species. All other conditions such as culturing under light or in the absence of light, without shaking proved futile. Therefore, the study illustrated the possibility of culturing these three important species in preparing the solutions of EM

Introduction
Solutions of Effective Microorganisms contain many species of beneficial microbes (Higa,1996). These include photosynthetic bacteria, Lactic acid bacteria, Yeast, Ray Fungi and Actinomyces. These microrganisms, multiply and develop beneficial effects when applied to agricultural soils. For example, some species of lactobacilli develop antagonistic effects towards Fusarium oxysporium,spp. Lycosperscii, which develop with Solanaceous crops. Another type of Ray Fungi , Streptomyces has antagonistic effects towards Fusarium (E.I. Abayed et al 1993).Hence,such diseases can be controlled by the use of mixtures of these organisms such as EM, under practical situations.

In practical situations, the mixing of beneficial microorganisms cause problems, as the environment required for one species can be toxic for another. This is found in EM, where Lactobacilli develops acidity in the medium, which is not conductive for the growth and survival of streptomyces. Hence a study was initiated to identify possible methods of maintaining both lactobacilli and streptomyces in one culture solution as required in EM, using species of photosynthetic microbes which are found in this solution of beneficial microorganisms.

Materials and Methods
The program of research conducted consisted of three experiments, using three species of organisms. Lactobacilli was represented by Lactobacilli plantarum, Streptomyces by streptomyces griseus, and the third species used was Rhodobactor sphaeroids, which was the photosynthetic bacterium. These species were procured from the Institute of Fermentation, Okasa Japan.
All experiments were carried out at the Department of Argriculture, University of Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan, over the period Jan.-Dec. 1994.

Experiment 1. Coexistance of S. griseus and L. plantarum
The two species were pre-cultured in the following manner.
S. griseus was grown in a glycerine-asparagin broth contained in test tubes of 200ml capacity for 7 days at 30* C, in total darkness. L plantarum was grown in a GYP broth contained in above mentioned tubes for 24 hours at
30 degrees C in the absence of light.
In the mixed culture, a molasses + fish extract broth was prepared by mixing 3g of molasses, 3g fish extact in 100 g of distilled water. The ph of this broth was adjusted to 7 with 0.1 NHCl.
To 100ml of this MF broth contained in a 250 ml conical flask, 1 ml of each of the cultures of S. griseus and L plantarum were added and the mixture left standing at 30 deg. C in total darkness. This was repeated three times and each flask was treated as a replicate.
The development of colonies of L. plantarum and S. griseus were counted at 12 hour intervals by sub-culturing samples of the mixtue on GYP agar and glycerine-asparagin plates respectively. This procedure was carried out for 72 hours. At each sampling, the pH of the mixture was also determined using a standard pH meter.

Experiment 2. Development of S. griseus and R. sphaeroides in Mixed Cultures
The pre-culturing of S. griseus was carried out in the manner described in experiment 1. R. sphaeroides was grown on a peptone-yeast extract broth in 200ml test tubes for 7 days at 30 deg. C. under light (5000 lux).
In the mixed culture, 1 ml each of the media containing the two microbial species were added tp 100 ml of the MF broth made up as described in Experiment 1, and contained in 250 ml. conical flasks. The mixed cultures were kept at 30 deg. C under full light (5000 lux).
At 12 hour intervals, sub samples of the mixture were sub-cultured on either glycerine-asparagin agar or on Hoshinno's modified agar for deterimining the colonies of S. griseus and R. sphaeroides respectively. This procedure was carried out for a period of 7 days, the process was repeated three times and each was considered a replicate.

Experiment 3. Mixed culturing of L. plantarum,S. griseus and R. sphaeroides

R. sphaeroids was pre-cultured on a P Y medium as decribed in Experiment 2.
Thereafter, 1 ml of this culture was added to 100ml of the MF broth described in experiment 1, and kept under light (5000 lux) at 30 deg. C for two days.
The second step was to pre-culture S. griseus as described in experiment 1
Thereafter, 1 ml of the culture containing S. griseus was added to the MF broth containing R. sphaeroids, this mixture was continuosly shaken at 120rpm and 30 deg C for another two days.
The final step was to pre-culture L. plantarum as described in experiment 1 Thereafter, 1 ml of this culture was added to the MF broth containing the other two species along with 40 ml of 3 percent molasses and shaken at 120 rpm at 30 deg C. for another two days.
At the end of this procedure, three samples of the MF broth, each contaning 30 ml were poured into individual test tubes of 40 ml volume and tightly sealed. One of the test tubes was kept standing under continuous light (5000lux). The second was kept standing in total darkness. The third was shaken continuously at 120rpm in the absence of light. This process of culturing lasted 48 hours.
Sampling was carried out at 2 day intervals beginning from initiation of culturing the species (R. sphaeroids) on the MF medium (step 1). Sub samples were obtained at different stages and cultured on an agar medium to determine the colonies of the three species. In addition, the pH of the culture was also determined on each occasion as described in experiment 1. The total number of samplings was 6 over a total of 10 days. This facilitated the determination of the three species after mixed culturing on two occasions with samples drawn and the test tubes maintained at different conditions. This process was repeated three times to facilitate replication.

Results and Discussion
Experiment 1
Lactobacillus is a very important microbe in EM. However the presence of Lactobacillus reduced the pH of the medium rapidly to a value below 2 within 36 hours, although the numbers of colonies of this species increased exponentially.
The increase in acidity of the medium resulted in the total elimination of S. griseus, which is a vital component in EM. The lowering of the pH value to below 2 destroyed all colonies of S. griseus. This clearly presented a situation where two important microrganisms in EM, Lactobacillus and Streptomyces could not be cultured together in the same medium.

Experiment 2
The culturing of photosynthetic bacteria and Streptomyces together illustrated the opposite phenomenon. The numbers of colonies of R sphaeroides grew with time. The colonies of S. griseus also developed wit time and the rate of development was more rapid than that of R. sphaeroides. In addition, the completion of the rapid phase of growth of Streptomyces coincided with the depression observed in the associated photosynthetic bacteria. However, the results showed that these two species, which are vital components could be cultured together to develop solutions of EM.

Experiment 3
The incubation of the three species together under the adopted conditions produced different results. In all instances pH of the media declined to values below 2 within 24 hours of the sub-culturing in the small tubes, irrespective of the environment provided. This could be attributed to the development of Lactic acid by the Lactobacillus species.
The growth of the three species under light showed the development of Rhodobactor and streptomyces, . However the Lactobacilli populations, which are important in EM declined. Hence this conditions was considered unfavorable for the production of EM.
Maintaining the mixed culture under dark conditions with any movement reduced the numbers of Rhodobacter and Streptomyces, while the colonies of Lactobacillus increased.
Therefore this condition was also considered not suitable for developing solutions of EM.
The culturing of all species in the absence of light, but with continued shaking at 120 rpm produced to be the most conductive environment for the three species. The populations of Rhodobacter colonies showed a marginal depression on the 6th day, which corresponded to the day of mixing. However this was overcome by the 8th day. In contrast the other two species grew with time, thus indicating the possibility of co-existance of these three important species, which are vital components of EM solutions.

Conclusions
The studies carried out to evaluate possible methods of culturing photosynthetic bacteria , lactic acid bacteria and Streptomyces together for developing solutions of EM provided very interesting results. The development of acidity by lactic acid bacteria suppresses Streptomyces. In contrst Streptomyces could coexist with photosynthetic bacteria. In mixed cultures of all three species, the only possibility of the tree species coexisting as required in EM was to shake the cultures under dark conditions at 30 deg C in the presence of molasses. This provided a suitable environment, althought the acidity of the medium increased due to lactic acid bacteria. While the casual phenomenon for this observation needs further study, the results of these experiments highlight the possibility of culturing these three important species, which are vital components in EM.

 

[JackTheGrower]

Jack, I'm confused. Are you bubbling the LactoB or just commenting on it?

Thanks

No I'm bubbling the BSF leachate.. I added the LactoB stuff to a bucket that has already been going a few weeks.

I'm not sure what the benefit to the liquid will be but it looks like the liquid is an adequate environment for the LactoB since I can see "foam" on the surface that I haven't seen since I first started bubbling.

 

[JackTheGrower]

easy there, no one is saying you are any sillier than the rest of us, which is pretty damn silly.

yeah MaryJohn should know so trust him..

 

[JackTheGrower]

I've missed the part of this discussion where I would understand why this culture LactoB is used in organic soil and related processes. It may be a temporary condition. So it turns a liquid acidic.. Would this be a decomposition of materials in liquid other microorganisms didn't?

Whole new world in organics for me.. Thanx

 

[JackTheGrower]

I realize I should state I added a better part of a half a gallon of milk to the bucket when i added the LactoB mix.

 

[Strainbrain]

This is interesting... FWIW, I was out at my local landfill this summer helping myself to their compost heaps when I noticed a truck with a large liquid tank from a local creamery come through and spray down all of the cooking rows. I asked about it and was told they would 'dump' their leftover whey liquid that way.

All I can say is that the 'dump compost' in my raised beds made tomato plants this year unlike any I've ever seen in my life.

-s

 

[maryjohn]

strainbrain, that is consistent with many experiences using lacto b, and also formulations like EM.

the EM people claim it breaks down lignin, but that does not explain why it brings soil back to life.

I am thinking it must feed the soil bacteria (or make food in the soil digestible) in a big way for a limited time before dying off. basically probiotics for soil.

just speculating.