Yogurt is known to have lactose consuming bacteria (lactic acid bacteria/LAB), which consume lactose, break it down to glucose and galactose and produce lactic acid from the glucose and release the galactose. Evidently, this reaction cannot completely finish off all the lactose because lactic acid builds up in the yogurt, reducing the rate of LAB consuming lactose further and producing more lactic acid. Thus, the pH becomes the limiting factor, in a way. What if we artificially controlled the pH and let the LAB keep consuming more and more lactose? One way would be to add baking soda or other ingredients to raise the pH, but it seems that with higher pH, spoilage might become a concern - after all, low pH values are known to impede spoilage-causing bacteria/mold. Nevertheless, couldn't it be possible to add just enough baking soda to raise the pH to a level where LAB can keep consuming lactose but not enough to let mold/spoilage causing bacteria to grow? If such a pH range exists, it should be possible to keep the yogurt in that pH range using baking soda and a pH meter to judge how much baking soda is needed.
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