Pediococcus pentosaceus
Also known as P. pentosaceus
The moderate-temperature pediococcus, milder and more versatile than its fast cousin, a common all-round acidifier for medium-warm ferments.
Pediococcus pentosaceus is the gentler of the two pediococci of curing, its name marking its ability to ferment the five-carbon pentose sugars. Like all pediococci it is a Gram-positive, homofermentative lactic coccus that divides into tetrads, but where acidilactici craves heat, pentosaceus works best in the moderate middle, neither the high warmth of the American fast ferment nor the cold of the European lactobacilli.
That temperate nature has made it one of the most versatile and widely used acidifiers, a frequent member of general-purpose starter blends the world over. Historically it sits alongside acidilactici in the pediococcus tradition that began with the first American cultures, and it is often the organism reached for when a maker wants a dependable, adaptable acid drop across a range of medium-warm conditions rather than a specialist for one extreme.
Its lactic acid drops the pH to firm the sausage and lay down the tang, but at a gentler pace and with a milder, rounder, less aggressive sourness than a fast high-temperature ferment, a character many makers prize in the finished flavour. It is one of the organisms that carries a ferment steadily through its early days and then gives way, as the sugars run down, to the slower flora that build long flavour.
In use it appears across a wide span of commercial cultures, often combined with a lactobacillus and a colour staphylococcus so that a single blend suits several styles, and it is handled like any starter, rehydrated in unchlorinated water and mixed through the meat with its sugar. It works well across moderate fermentation temperatures, commonly around 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. It is the safe, adaptable acidifier of the middle ground.