Culturing bifidum Bifidobacterium

[Tigger]

Hi all,

I've been trying to culture bifidum Bifidobacterium but don't seem to be making an effective/successful batch. I bought the probiotic powder from Natren. Here are the steps I followed:

1. Heat skim milk to a low boil.
2. Cool.
3. Mix in 10 billion CFU bifidum Bifidobacterium.
4. Place in yogurt maker for 24 hours.

I haven't noticed any positive or negative effects when taking even the whole serving after the 24 hour period.

Any advice?

@Vegas @Ammon @Richard7 @South @Gestalt @Violeta

 

[Thinktank]

Have you checked the temperature of the yoghurt maker?
If the temperature is too high the bacteria will die, if it's too low they will not mutiply.

 

[Tigger]

Good point. I'm not sure how I'd be able to though. I bought the EuroCuisine but it only has an off/on switch and is covered in a big plastic lid so opening it to check would obviously change the temperature almost immediately.

 

[Tigger]

I certainly get a final texture/product that looks and tastes as intense as I'd imagined but I'm simply not getting that much of a response from it (even in large amounts).

 

[Richard7]

From your last comment @Tigger it sounds like the culture is growing properly.

If you are unsure another way to test would be to get a UHT milk or soy, so you know it has no competing bacteria, use good fermentation hygine (clean all vessels and implements carefully rinse with boiling water etc) and add the cold milk to the probiotics and then raise to fermentation temperature in the yoghurt maker.

I know that people making 24 hour yoghurts for the GAPS diet are advised to not use the 24 hour yoghurt as a starter culture because at 24 hours it has exhausted all of the nurtrients in the yoghurt and I gather there are fewer viable bacteria than at 12hrs. I do not know if this is the case, but it might be worth testing: ie try to see if a 12 hour culture is better for you.

But of course it may be that the yoghurt is fine and that this particular strain of bifido is not what you need. I do not know. I tend to look to ken lessesen when I want to get a handle on probiotics and CFS. https://cfsremission.com/

 

[Thinktank]

Good point. I'm not sure how I'd be able to though. I bought the EuroCuisine but it only has an off/on switch and is covered in a big plastic lid so opening it to check would obviously change the temperature almost immediately.

Opening up the lid for a few seconds is not a big problem. You need a candy thermometer to check the temperature.
I find the temperature to be a critical step in the fermentation process.

 

[ChrisD]

@Tigger Do you remove the film/skin that forms on top when it is cooled? That is all the casein, best to get it out. I add colostrum as well at that point

 

[Carl]

Temperature is crucial to Bifidobacterium. Be aware that many yoghurt makers have very poor temperature regulation and the temperature can get far too high. If you read reviews on Amazon you might be able to find reviews which show the temperature and complaints about it getting far too high. Many yoghurt makers suffer from this. Getting a plug in temperature controller which has a temperature sensor and sticking the sensor on the heat surface might help to keep it better regulated. It might be necessary to make a hole to feed the sensor. I have been planning on doing this with an InkBird ITC-308 controller. I wanted to get a different temperature sensor than the one it is supplied with and put a plug on the lead and then plug the lead into the yoghurt maker by fitting a connector with the new sensor connected to the heat plate inside the yoghurt maker to monitor the temperature and switch it on and off according to the set temperature. That would allow lower temperatures to be maintained. ATM I have been having to use polystyrene on the heat plate whenever I need to reduce the temperature which does not always do the job well enough.

A pdf I read about different Bififo strains suggests that 44C tends to significantly hinder their growth and many yoghurt makers can get above this. After 48 hours they do begin to grow at 44C but after 24 hours there was no growth.

I think it would help if you could measure the temperature to make sure it is not rising too high.

I have a Moulinex yoghurt maker which some Eurocuisine models are based upon and mine was getting to 60C in the centre the hottest place until I modified it.

They do not like oxygen, they are anaerobic by nature.

 

[Carl]

Good point. I'm not sure how I'd be able to though. I bought the EuroCuisine but it only has an off/on switch and is covered in a big plastic lid so opening it to check would obviously change the temperature almost immediately.

It will not change the temperature of the yoghurt that quickly. If you use a thermal probe in the yoghurt then I suggest that you sterilize the probe before you put it into the yoghurt so that you do not risk contaminating it. Some H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) on the probe for a few minutes should do it. Testing the yoghurt maker before you make the yoghurt using a jar of water and leaving it on for some hours and then measuring the temperature should give you some idea as to the temperature it can get to. You can then proceed from there.....

 

[Tigger]

Thank you all for the help!

@ChrisD I will start removing that layer of casein. How does the colostrum actually end up assisting?

@Richard7 I will test soy in my next batch. Also, I'm not using any official starter per-say. I'm just using the Natren probiotic powder and the milk. Do I need to be using an actual starter as well or does the probiotic itself serve that purpose?

I will figure a way to test the temperature as well as culturing for 12 hours instead of 24.

 

[Richard7]

@Tigger, yeah the natren is what I meant by starter.

Taking colostrum could help because it encourages the growth of bifidobacteria in babies' guts. I do not know the exact mechanism, but understand that it is a mixture of providing food to encourage bifidos and other things to discourage everything else. Some of the commercial strains were first isolated from babies faeces.

I should note that I have also grown bifidobacteria in the old fashioned vacuum flask type yoghurt maker. Where you heat the milk up then cool it down to 40 place it in a glass jar with the starter and place the jar in an insulated container over night.

I have also grown it as a fermented porridge. Cooking the porridge then cooling it adding the bacteria and fermenting it for a couple of days. Though I find it tastes better as a mixture - the current one is just 2 strains bifido longum, l heleveticus and symbioflor 2 grown on rice, buckwheat and sorghum.

The only difficulty I find in growing things from probiotics is how long it takes. Making 1 litre of yoghurt from a couple of billion CFUs of bacteria may take 14 hrs, making it from say 40mls of yoghurt from the previous batch might only take 6 or 7 hours.

 

[satori]

Doesn't bifidus require that you limit the oxygen in the container (obligate anaerobe)?