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Chemical, microbial, and volatile changes of water kefir during fermentation with economic substrates

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Abstract

Water kefir is a plant-based type of kefir and has significant differences from well-known milk kefir. Recently, various complicated substrates were fermented with water kefir grains, but an economical substrate is essential for the industrial aspect. This study aims to understand changes in fermentation products of water kefir grains during fermentation with economic substrates and investigates how fermentation progresses under almost ideal fermentation parameters. The fig-based medium provided high contents of Lactobacillus spp. and Lactococcus spp. Also, fig-based medium with high fructose content contained a higher amount of Bifidobacterium sp. Moreover, the fig-based medium resulted in more organic acid content, forming as much as ten times higher than the sugar-based medium for lactic acid after the same fermentation time (p < 0.05). On the other hand, volatile compounds such as acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, ethanol, acetic acid, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, oxime-, methoxy-phenyl, and phenylethyl alcohol were detected for both water kefir samples. Antioxidant capacity (TEAC and ORAC) was higher for the fig-based medium than for the sugar-based medium. This is the first study that comprehensively proved that only sugar solution was not a sufficient medium for water kefir fermentation, but fig containing solution had abundant nutrients to obtain preferable and acceptable water kefir beverage.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

AAB:

Acetic acid bacteria

ABTS + :

2,2’-Azinobis (3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt

BS:

Water kefir with white sugar

INP:

Water kefir with dried figs

LAB:

Lactic acid bacteria

ORAC:

Oxygen radical absorbance capacity

TEAC:

Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Danem Inc. (www.kefirdanem.com) for providing kefir grains and technical assistance.

Funding

This study was supported by Suleyman Demirel University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (Project FDK-2020-7481). Çağlar Gökırmaklı was supported via a doctorate fellowship of The Council of Higher Education (YÖK 100/2000) during his Ph.D. program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Engineering, Süleyman Demirel University, 32260, Isparta, Turkey

    Çağlar Gökırmaklı & Zeynep Banu Guzel-Seydim

  2. Department of Food Engineering, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale, Turkey

    Yonca Karagül Yüceer

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  1. Çağlar Gökırmaklı
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  2. Yonca Karagül Yüceer
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  3. Zeynep Banu Guzel-Seydim
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Contributions

ÇG: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, funding acquisition, writing—original draft preparation, YKY: methodology, writing—original draft preparation, ZBGS: conceptualization, methodology, funding acquisition, writing— original draft preparation, supervision.

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Correspondence to Çağlar Gökırmaklı.

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Gökırmaklı, Ç., Yüceer, Y.K. & Guzel-Seydim, Z.B. Chemical, microbial, and volatile changes of water kefir during fermentation with economic substrates. Eur Food Res Technol 249, 1717–1728 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00217-023-04242-9

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