To investigate the influence of culture pH on lactic acid
fermentation from molasses, lactic acid fermentations were
performed on a jar fermentor at 38 ◦C and pH 5.0–9.0 using
200 g/l of molasses (equivalent to 102 g/l of total sugar). Fig. 1
shows the time courses of lactic acid production (Fig. 1a) and
cell growth (Fig. 1b) during fermentations at various culture
pHs. Although the optimum pH for cell growth of E. faecalis
RKY1 was seen to be 8.0, the lactic acid fermentation at pH
7.0 was completed faster than that at pH 8.0. From Fig. 1,
we also found that E. faecalis RKY1 might prefer neutral or
alkaline conditions to acidic conditions in molasses fermen-