3. Results
3.1. LAB isolation
All the enrichment assays showed pH values near 4.5 after 48 h
incubation. Colonies (n 1⁄4 350) were isolated from the different raw
material described in section 2.1. Most of the isolates were shown to
be cocci with different appearance (diplococci, chains, and tetra-
mers). From these microscopic observations and macroscopic
evaluations of colonies, 50 strains (41 cocci and 9 bacilli) were
selected based on the fact that they had different morphologies and
possessed gram positive and catalase-negative phenotypes. These
50 strains were the identified by genotypic analysis (see Table 1)
and different technological properties were studied in order to
select the most promising starter cultures.