LAB Diversity
From my current understanding, diversity is key. That being said, should we look to create as much diversity as possible when making LAB, such as multiple rice wash collections from multiple local locations or is this idea counter productive?
The answer
Somewhat counter productive when you weigh cost to benefit. KNF Police also known as lactic acid bacteria are almost omnipresent in the environments within the Milky Way. Their diversity is based on multiplying with each other in the starch rich collection water, and also partly based on the amount naturally collected from the environment.
To strengthen them, the last stage of adding brown sugar to the mix to super saturate the solution for preservation also acts to activate the lactic acid bacteria present.
From the KNF library
From the KNF library
Drafted by Claude from Office Hours and the books
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Sep 2026
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5 sources
Here is what the library adds.
Cho says rice-washed water gives strong indigenous LAB stocks for a given region (Cho, Recipe, p. 54). The Basic Course recipe pours one rice wash into three jars (Student's Manual, Basic Course, p. 17). KNF Demystified starts from one pint of starchy water (KNF Demystified, p. 31).
Sitting time does the selecting. In the rinse water, 3 to 5 days makes LAB predominant (Student's Manual, Basic Course, p. 13).
Drake has also praised collecting microbes from the duff under old-growth trees (Office Hours Ep. 32, 1:00:45).
The library does not compare a single collection site with several.
Sources
- 1:00:45 Office Hours Ep. 32 (May 2022) — LAB for a Down Cow, Fish Amino Acid Ratios, Goat Manure Compost · “Is it okay to collect LAB/microbes from the duff under old-growth forest trees? A: Yes — Drake praised it”
- p. 17 Student's Manual, Basic Course · “pour the rice wash in even thirds into the jars”
- p. 31 KNF Demystified · “Gather a pint of starchy water from washing rice.”
- p. 13 Student's Manual, Basic Course · “will cause LAB to become the predominant”
- p. 54 Cho, Recipe · “Obtain strong indigenous pure stocks of lactic acid bacteria in a given region by using rice-washed water.”
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