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Lactic acid bacteria

A wheel with a wedge cut, showing paste and rind.

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Bacteria that produce lactic acid (and often acetic acid) in sourdough, cheese, and other fermented foods.

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) sour dough and milk. They produce lactic acid and, in heterofermentative species, often acetic acid and carbon dioxide as well. That Acidity flavors food and makes the habitat harder for some competitors.

In a Sourdough starter LAB share flour paste with Wild yeast. In cheese they are often added as Cheese cultures. Wine’s main alcoholic ferment is yeast; malolactic conversion is a later bacterial story, not this page.

The lactic/acetic balance in bread depends on temperature, hydration, and flour — not on a city’s name alone 1. Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis (formerly Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis) was isolated from San Francisco bakery doughs in 1971 as a maltose-loving heterofermenter 2 and renamed in the 2020 Lactobacillus split 3. It is a sourdough specialist, not a municipal monopoly. History and the geographic myth: San Francisco sourdough.

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Cited in this article

  • Raymond Calvel. The Taste of Bread. Aspen Publishers. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8342-1646-4
  • Leo Kline, T. F. Sugihara. Microorganisms of the San Francisco Sour Dough Bread Process. II. Isolation and Characterization of Undescribed Bacterial Species Responsible for the Souring Activity. Applied Microbiology. 1971. DOI 10.1128/am.21.3.459-465.1971 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC377203/
  • Jinshui Zheng, Stijn Wittouck, Elisa Salvetti, Charles M. A. P. Franz, Hugh M. B. Harris, Paola Mattarelli, Paul W. O'Toole, Bernard Pot, Peter Vandamme, Jens Walter, Koichi Watanabe, Sander Wuyts, Giovanna E. Felis, Michael G. Gänzle, Sarah Lebeer. A taxonomic note on the genus Lactobacillus: Description of 23 novel genera, emended description of the genus Lactobacillus Beijerinck 1901, and union of Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostocaceae. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 2020. DOI 10.1099/ijsem.0.004107

Updated 2026-08-25. gg:topic:lactic-acid-bacteria · CC BY 4.0

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Gourmet Gastronomer. "Lactic acid bacteria." Gourmet Gastronomer. Updated August 25, 2026. https://gourmetgastronomer.com/science/lactic-acid-bacteria/.

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Gourmet Gastronomer. (2026, August 25). Lactic acid bacteria. https://gourmetgastronomer.com/science/lactic-acid-bacteria/