The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Meat Fermenting Culture

Ricko's picture
Ricko

Meat Fermenting Culture

I use the following culture in making some of my sausage and was wondering how it would react with some starter? The culture I'm referring to is Bactoferm LHP Dry (Pediococcus acidilactici & Pediococcus pentosaceus). The information given about how it works with meat is as follows:

For extra fast acidification. If a pronounced sourly flavor is desired, you selected this culture wisely. Bactoferm LHP culture causes the meat's pH to drop to under 5.3 in 30 hours or under 5.0 in 2 days. Great for thin products like pepperoni or sausages ¡Â1¡± in dia.. Extra-Fast culture targeted for fermentation temperatures 90¡ÆF-105¡ÆF. P. acidilactici has optimal growth at 104¡ÆF and P. pentosaceus at 95¡ÆF, they will grow just fine under this temperature. They metabolize most common sugars and create lactic acid (use Dextrose, not Sugar). Typically this culture is for products that take around 2 weeks or less to fully complete (includes drying).

So as you can see we are dealing with Lactic acid, a temperature of around 95 F and a 2 day growth period. Sounds good to me so far.

Now since I do throw out some of my starter at every feeding, I was going to save some and give it a taste of the Bactoferm LHP culture. Nothing tried, nothing gained I guess. I hope our resident microbiologist (Debra Wink) can chime in here and tell me if this is just wishful thinking for a more sour starter and I'm wasting my time, or if it might result in something nice?

I guess I've always dreamed about baking a bread that when it cools and you spread some real butter on that first slice, the first bite causes you to pucker with delight from a mouthful of sour!

clazar123's picture
clazar123

My brother in law makes the most mouth puckering bread just from regular flour and water starter and LOOOooooonnng ferments. It tasted like pickled bread! If that's how you like it, introduce the 2 cultures and see what happens.

On a practical note-I wonder how the yeast will react to a sudden drop in pH? I also wonder if there will be enough sugars present for the meat culture to actually work. It would seem that it would need an awful lot of food to digest in order for it to make that volume of lactic acid. I am not a micrbiologist and I hope some chime in,too. Intriguing question.