Strategies to monitor alcoholic fermentation processes Chapter uri icon

abstract

  • During fermentation processes, the determination of microbiological population density and diversity, nutrients concentration and products formation (not only ethanol but also volatile and non-volatile compounds that contribute to the flavor) are the most important variables. Nevertheless, a bottleneck in all biochemical monitoring process is often the lack of sensors for biological variables. Nowadays many different approaches are being developed for the monitoring fermentations processes. In this chapter we review different strategies to monitor alcoholic fermentation processes, ranging from offline to online approaches. In the offline case, we go from the classical like microscopic counting, direct plating, optical density, gas and liquid chromatography methods to molecular biology techniques like PCR, Real-time PCR and proteomics. While for the online case, we tackle not only those quantifying the physical environment of a bioreactor, temperature, O2, CO2, pH, oBrix, NMR spectroscopy, Infrared spectroscopy, but also some promising mathematical approaches like wavelets and observers design. In a bioreactor, the cells constitute a biological system that is continuously interacting and influencing the physical and chemical properties of its surrounding, the must. The understanding and the ability to monitor this interaction are fundamental to manipulate and control the wonderfully complex conversion occurring during the alcoholic fermentation processes. © 2010 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • 2010-01-01