Characterization of the indigenous fermenters for the production of fermented condiments from soybean seeds

Abstract

Several studies have shown that most condiments consumed in Nigeria today are produced from allochtonous microorganisms, and these organisms are usually associated with diseases or create negative impacts into the condiments. Several attempts have been made in order to control this ugly situation but there is still controversial thought in the choice of microorganism to be used in order to produce a non-toxic and palatable condiment. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterize the indigenous fermenters for the production of fermented condiments from soybean seeds. Soybean (Glycine max) sample were gotten from the market and were transferred aseptically to the laboratory for further analysis, the samples were prepared and fermented in a wrapped Thaumatococcus danielli leaves (called Uma in Igbo and Ewe eran in Yoruba). The specific microbial genera were enumerated on appropriate selected media and identified using standard identification parameters with the aid of identification and taxonomic manuals. Soybean sample was fermented with indigenous microorganisms isolated from 7 days old fermented soybean sample. This was oven-dried, pulverized and packaged in a cleaned sterile screw capped container. Lactobacillus plantarum strain ZS 2058 (L), Bacillus subtilis strain 168 (B) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain YJM555 (Y) were the indigenous microbes isolated from the 7 days locally fermented soybean and these were used for the production of light to dark brown condiments with water activity ranging from 0.27 – 0.37 for the fermented soybean in the plate and 0.22 - 0.36 for the fermented soybean wrapped with Thaumatococcus danielli leaves (called “uma” in Igbo and “ewe eran” in Yoruba). It was observed that the condiments produced using indigenous consortium of BLY was significantly (p<0.05) more preferable to the ones produced from single strain. Therefore this study has shown indigenous B, L, Y, BL and BLY produced good and palatable condiments from fermented soybean.