The brewing of Nyushu, an alcoholic beverage from milk, in a Sake-type brewage includes two major processes. The first step is the process of trypsin digestion and lactic acid fermentation. The second step is alcohol fermentation. At each step, the contents of water-soluble SH and SS compounds are estimated fluorometrically by the
N-(9-acridinyl)-maleimide (NAM) method. Another method of Nyushu fermentation (Kefir-type) was examined. In the Kefir-type of brewage, both lactic acid and alcohol fermentation were performed simultaneously, and trypsin was not treated. Soluble-form SH and SS contents during fermentation, probably derived from small molecular weight compounds and protein digests, were simultaneously increased with changes in pH, acid-ity, non-protein nitrogen (NPN) and ethanol contents.
In the first step of the Sake-type fermentation, the SS content was below 40 μM, whereas below 83 μM in the second step. In the Kefir-type, the SS content was below 13 μM. The SH content was below 18 μM and 40 μM (Sake-type) and 5 μM (Kefir-type), respectively.
The total SH: SS was about 1:2 in the first step and also about 1:2 in the second step in the Sake-type fermentation, whereas about 1:3 in the Kefir-type. It was suggested that the content increased with trypsin (in case of Sake-type) and proteases produced from
Str. lactis, Sacch. sake or
Kluyveromyces fragilis.
The chromatogram patterns of cysteine and other SH compounds in both fermentations were studied by HPLC, and their patterns showed small variation based on the inoculated bacterium or yeast.
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