Isolation and identification of lactic acid bacteria and aceticacid bacteria for the process of cocoa bean fermentation

Abstract

The fermentation of cocoa beans is one of the important factors that determine the quality of the commercial cocoa products. Each species of microorganisms has an important role to help improve the quality of fermented cocoa beans, especially lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria.Therefore, 8 strains of lactic acid bacteria and 3 strains of acetic acid bacteria were isolated. Bacillus coagulans, Lactobacillus plantarum and Acetobacter lovaniensisstrains exhibited to be better acid producers than the others. The optimal parameters of the semi-solid medium for the biomass production of Bacillus coagulanswere 85% corn bran + 15% rice bran for 48 hours of fermentation (population of bacteria was 1.61x1012Cfu/g); those of Lactobacillus plantarum were 90% corn bran + 10% rice bran for 48 hours of fermentation (population of bacteria was 2.15x1010Cfu/g); those of Acetobacter lovaniensis were90% corn bran + 10% rice bran for 48 hours of fermentation (population of bacteria was 2.19x1011 Cfu/g).