Isolation and identification of Lactobacillus and yeast species and their effect on the quality of fermented rice cakes.

In this study, microbes were isolated from the rice slurry of a fermented rice cake to obtain lactic acid bacteria and yeast species. These species were identified using microbial physiology and gene sequence analyses. As the growth of the lactic acid bacterial strain R-2b and the yeast J-3a strains were found to be the best, a composite starter comprising these microbes was used for the preparation of fermented rice cakes. Based on single factor and orthogonal experiments, when the proportion of Lactobacillus plantarum , Saccharomyces cerevisiae , and Candida humilis was 1:3:6, the optimal fermentation conditions were addition of sugar and starter amounts of 20% and 6%, respectively, a fermentation temperature of 32 °C, and fermentation time of 8 h. The fermented rice cake with this optimum ratio had the most abundant volatile components and qualified physicochemical and microbial indexes. Additionally, the overall quality was better than that of commercially available products. • We isolated the yeast and bacteria from the rice slurry of a fermented rice steamed cake. • The starters comprising these three microbes were used for fermented rice cake preparation. • The fermented rice cake had the most abundant volatile components and overall quality. • The physicochemical and microbial indexes were better than that of commercial rice cake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]