Dataset Information

Curing of Cocoa Beans: Fine-Scale Monitoring of the Starter Cultures Applied and Metabolomics of the Fermentation and Drying Steps.

ABSTRACT: Starter culture-initiated cocoa fermentation processes can be applied to improve the quality of cured cocoa beans. However, an accurate monitoring of the microbial strains inoculated in fresh cocoa pulp-bean mass to assess their contribution to the cocoa bean curing process is still lacking. In the present study, eight different cocoa fermentation processes were carried out with Trinitario cocoa in vessels in Costa Rica to assess the contribution of two candidate yeast starter culture strains, namely Saccharomyces cerevisiae IMDO 050523 and Pichia kudriavzevii IMDO 020508, inoculated in combination with Limosilactobacillus fermentum IMDO 0611222 and Acetobacter pasteurianus IMDO 0506386. A multiphasic approach, consisting of culture-dependent selective plating and incubation, rRNA-PCR-DGGE community profiling of agar plate washes, and culture-independent high-throughput amplicon sequencing, combined with a metabolite target analysis of non-volatile and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), was performed on samples from the fermentation and/or drying steps. The different starter culture mixtures applied effectively steered the cocoa fermentation processes performed. Moreover, the use of an amplicon sequence variant (ASV) approach, aligning these ASVs to the whole-genome sequences of the inoculated strains, allowed the monitoring of these inoculated strains and their differentiation from very closely related variants naturally present in the background or spontaneous fermentation processes. Further, traits such as malolactic fermentation during the fermentation step and acetoin and tetramethylpyrazine formation during the drying step could be unraveled. Finally, the yeast strains inoculated influenced the substrate consumption and metabolite production during all starter culture-initiated fermentation processes. This had an impact on the VOC profiles of the cured cocoa beans. Whereas the P. kudriavzevii strain produced a wide range of VOCs in the cocoa pulp, the S. cerevisiae strain mostly influenced the VOC composition of the cured cocoa beans.

SUBMITTER: Diaz-Munoz C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7829357 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Curing of Cocoa Beans: Fine-Scale Monitoring of the Starter Cultures Applied and Metabolomics of the Fermentation and Drying Steps.

Díaz-Muñoz Cristian C Van de Voorde Dario D Comasio Andrea A Verce Marko M Hernandez Carlos Eduardo CE Weckx Stefan S De Vuyst Luc L

Frontiers in microbiology 20210111

Starter culture-initiated cocoa fermentation processes can be applied to improve the quality of cured cocoa beans. However, an accurate monitoring of the microbial strains inoculated in fresh cocoa pulp-bean mass to assess their contribution to the cocoa bean curing process is still lacking. In the present study, eight different cocoa fermentation processes were carried out with Trinitario cocoa in vessels in Costa Rica to assess the contribution of two candidate yeast starter culture strains, n ...[more]

PMID: 33505385

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Project description:Forastero hybrid cocoa bean fermentations have been carried out in a box (B) and in a heap (H), with or without the inoculation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Torulaspora delbrueckii as starter cultures. The bacteria, yeasts, and microbial metabolites (volatile and nonvolatile organic compounds) were monitored during fermentation to assess the connection between microbiota and the release of metabolites during this process. The presence of starter cultures was detected, by means of culture-dependent analysis, during the first 2 days of both fermentations. However, no statistical difference was observed in any of the physicochemical or microbiological analyses. Plate counts revealed the dominance of yeasts at the beginning of both fermentations, and these were followed by acetic acid bacteria (AAB) and lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Hanseniaspora opuntiae, S. cerevisiae, Pichia pijperi, Acetobacter pasteurianus, and Lactobacillus fermentum were the most abundant operational taxonomic units (OTUs) during both fermentation processes (B and H), although different relative abundances were observed. Only the diversity of the fungal species indicated a higher level of complexity in the B fermentations than in the H fermentations (P < 0.05), as well as a statistically significant difference between the initially inoculated starter cultures (P < 0.01). However, the microbial metabolite analysis indicated different distributions of the volatile and nonvolatile compounds between the two procedures, that is, B and H (P < 0.05), rather than between the inoculated and noninoculated fermentations. The box fermentations showed faster carbohydrate metabolism and greater production of organic acid compounds, which boosted the formation of alcohols and esters, than did the heap fermentations. Overall, the microbial dynamics and associations between the bacteria, yeasts, and metabolites were found to depend on the type of fermentation.IMPORTANCE In spite of the limited effectiveness of the considered inoculated starter strains, this study provides new information on the microbial development of box and heap cocoa fermentations, under inoculated and noninoculated conditions, as we coupled yeast/bacterial amplicon-based sequencing data with microbial metabolite detection. The information so far available suggests that microbial communities have played an important role in the evolution of aroma compounds. Understanding the pathways that microorganisms follow during the formation of aromas could be used to improve the fermentation processes and to enhance chocolate quality.

Dataset Information

Curing of Cocoa Beans: Fine-Scale Monitoring of the Starter Cultures Applied and Metabolomics of the Fermentation and Drying Steps.

Publications

Curing of Cocoa Beans: Fine-Scale Monitoring of the Starter Cultures Applied and Metabolomics of the Fermentation and Drying Steps.

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