All RS and RSPF gruels fermented by co-cultures had shorter fermentation time than the same gruels fermented by single strains of ALAB (P b 0.05), Table 1. Still with respect to the fermentation of RS and RSPF gruels, the association ALAB-probiotic exerted only mild influence on the averages of Vmax and TVmax which had the tendency to be near the averages of the gruels fermented by single strains of ALAB (Table 1). Notwithstanding, it was observed that the gruels fermented by the cocultures made of one ALAB strain and L.casei had longer fermentation time than the gruels fermented by the other co-cultures (P b 0.05), which is in accordance with the poor acidifying capacity of L. casei observed in rice gruel and soy milk separately (Table 1). Considering the fermentation of RS and RSPF gruels, the time to reach pH 4.5 ranged from 5.9 to 9.4 h, which were near the fermentation time needed to obtain yoghurt at the same final pH through fermentation by Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (Espírito-Santo et al., 2012)