The Exciting Process of Yogurt Fermentation

Yogurt: an often tasty side dish, whose origins possibly date back to caveman times. But some ask, "Where does this white stuff come from? I don't understand..." Well, the answer is not as black and white as it should be. In order to understand how yogurt comes to be, one must first grasp the intricacies of how yogurt is made. It is foolish to believe that yogurt is simply super rotten milk, because it  is so much more. Yogurt is formed by a very complicated series of steps, but in order to understand these steps, one must first understand exactly what bacteria are. When people think bacteria, people usually think of diseases, and that stuff that Lysol kills. In the real world, bacteria do not usually cause disease, and are actually used by animals, eukaryotes, some plants, and even some fungi to help with many vital bodily and cellular functions. Bacteria are classified as prokaryotic cells, the much smaller and more simple version of the Eukaryotic cell. Prokaryotes do not have any organelles other than ribosomes, let their genetic material float freely within them, and have cell walls. They generally do not cause disease in living creatures; the only bacterial diseases I could think of with my hyper powerful brain were Strep Throat, the Bubonic Plague, E.Coli, and last but certainly not least, the mighty Gonorrhea, destroyer of urethra. But those are the bad bactria, some good bacteria would be the E.coli inside our bodies that digest alot of our food for us, the bacteria on our skin that keep it hydrated and excrete antibiotics to stop infection and decay, and some biologists even belive midochondria and chloroplasts are also bacteria, both of which are vital for animal and plant cell life. Milk has many types of bacteria in it, some of which cause the milk to taste sour, and some that cause the milk to morph into yogurt. The bacteria that cause the milk to spoil are called spoilage bacteria, and the ones that cause yogurt to be I shall hereby dub "Yogurt Bacteria." Some bacteria can only live under certain circumstances; for example, the spoilage bacteria cannot survive at 37 degrees celsius, or in acidic enviroments; on the flip side, the yogurt bacteria thrive under those conditions, and that is how yogurt is made. All you have to do is scald the milk to kill off the spoilage bacteria, and then let the yogurt bacteria roam freely. The yogurt bacteria denaturizes the milks proteins, which gives yogurt that thick and semi solid texture; this process also releases acids, which further drops the pH and kills off any stragglers. In this lab, my peons and I will test this process with our science skills.