Competitive Exclusion During Starter Succession
Serial dilution by feeding imposes a selection: organisms that cannot double faster than the dilution rate wash out, and acid-intolerant species are further excluded as pH drops below about 4.5. This two-filter regime — growth rate plus acid tolerance — is why an unseeded flour-water mixture converges on a reproducible LAB-yeast community within one to two weeks.
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Serial dilution by feeding imposes a selection: organisms that cannot double faster than the dilution rate wash out, and acid-intolerant species are further excluded as pH drops below about 4.5. This two-filter regime — growth rate plus acid tolerance — is why an unseeded flour-water mixture converges on a reproducible LAB-yeast community within one to two weeks.
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