Aug 04
As an undergraduate graduation research project, we are investigating the aroma of cultured butter. While typical cultured butter is often produced by adding a lactic acid bacteria culture containing diacetyl directly to the butter, our research focuses on butter made by actually fermenting the cream itself before churning. Recently, she has become quite skilled at making our own butter.
Jul 10
Our lab students produced ice cream for the second time this year. It was absolutely delicious — and most impressively, using a hand-cranked ice cream maker, they achieved an overrun of 28.8%. A great result! Next time, we’re aiming to break the 30% mark!
Jul 08
This year, our third-year students spent three months crafting Calpis, a sugared sour milk beverage, from scratch. A delicate flavor, a full sweetness, and a perfectly balanced dilution ratio. They did a wonderful job.
Jun 29
M17 medium is a widely used culture medium for lactic streptococci. When it was first reported by Terzaghi & Sandine (1975), one of the reference media used for comparison was T5 medium (Thomas et al., 1974). T5 medium contains phosphate salts and shows buffering capacity equivalent to that of M17 medium, making it an excellent choice for lactic streptococci that produce large amounts of lactic acid. However, T5 medium was found to form a precipitate, and the authors concluded that the clear M17 medium was superior. Fifty years later, M17 medium has become the standard. When I read the description that T5 medium produces a precipitate, I thought, “Hmm, is …
May 02
While walking through the laboratory, I came across the universe beetles on a desiccator.