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soured milk

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milk fermented with mesophilic lactic acid bacteria

Key facts

Main ingredients
Milk

via Wikipedia infobox

~1 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Soured milk, sour milk, spontaneously soured milk, or naturally soured milk is the milk product fermented with indigenous microorganisms (chiefly mesophilic lactic acid bacteria), as opposed to cultured milk of which the production involves controlled fermentation with starter cultures. Lactic acid produced by the bacteria causes milk to coagulate and thicken, inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria and improving the product's shelf life.

Examples include amasi from southern Africa, clabber from Ireland, aludttej from Hungary, Dickmilch (thick milk) and Herbstmilch (autumn milk) from Germany, gruševina from Yugoslavia, rūgpienis from Lithuania, prostokvasha from Russia, laban rayeb from Egypt, maziwa lala from Kenya.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “soured milk” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.