Microorganisms with a taste for vanilla: microbial ecology of traditional Indonesian vanilla curing.

ABSTRACT: The microbial ecology of traditional postharvesting processing of vanilla beans (curing) was examined using a polyphasic approach consisting of conventional cultivation, substrate utilization-based and molecular identification of isolates, and cultivation-independent community profiling by 16S ribosomal DNA based PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. At two different locations, a batch of curing beans was monitored. In both batches a major shift in microbial communities occurred after short-term scalding of the beans in hot water. Fungi and yeast disappeared, although regrowth of fungi occurred in one batch during a period in which process conditions were temporarily not optimal. Conventional plating showed that microbial communities consisting of thermophilic and thermotolerant bac

SUBMITTER: Roling WF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC92828 | biostudies-literature | 2001 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature