Effect of Fermentation Period on Alcohol Content, pH, TSS and Titrable Acidity during Microbial Processing of Coconut Water for the Development of Coconut Wine

Abstract

Background: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one of the important yeast found to be superior in the fermentation technology. Methods: The present study was undertaken to study the periodical changes in TSS, pH, acidity and alcohol content during the fermentation process of wine preparation from coconut water. With different TSS levels (7, 9, 11 and 13°Brix) adjusted with sugar and 9°Brix was the optimized sugar level. Result: TSS in wine was constantly reduced until fermentation was complete. Though the TSS reduced significantly during the first stage of fermentation, it continued to decline at a considerably slower rate until the fermentation was complete. It was observed that the TSS level does not affect the pH of coconut wine, but pH decreased with the increase in fermentation period because of increase in titrable acidity and alcohol. It was also noticed that the titratable acidity was found least at 6th day and maximum at 12th day, titratable acidity increased as fermentation progressed which was consistent with the fall in pH. The higher the TSS levels yields high titratable acidity during fermentation. Immediately after inoculation, the yeast count rises sharply on the first day of fermentation. It then tends to rise drastically till the third day, after which the yeast count is found to have declined until the end of fermentation. The coconut wine was prepared from coconut water added with sucrose as a source of sugar. Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MTCC 171) was used as reference strain and yeast isolate BRYI-1 produced the best results of alcohol content and sensory characteristics when compared to reference yeast strain.