Microbiological Studies and Biochemical Changes in Fermenting Soybean Curd Residue during Fermentation

This study was attempted to identify microorganisms in fermenting soybean curd residues (SCR). The changes in contents of free amino acids, nucleosides, reducing sugars, and oligosaccharides were also studied. The fermentation of SCR which was by change inoculation was carried out at for 48 hrs. pH increased gradually during fermentation and isolated microorganisms were identified as Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis. Moisture content decreased from 80.8% to 58.4% at 48 hrs of fermentation and other proximate composition did not show any changes during fermentation. The content of total free amino acids increased rapidly and the number and quantities of each amino acid analyzed also increased during the course of fermentation. Glutamic acid, phenylalaine, lysine and aspartic acid were rapidly liberated during fermentation. As to the changes of nucleotides, 5'-AMP little changed during the first 36 hrs but subsequently decreased to approximately 1/6 after 48 hrs of fermentation. On the other hand, 5'-IMP plus 5'-GMP did not show almost any change during the first 36 hrs but increased about 3.5 times at 48 hrs of fermentation. However, 5'-XMP was not detected. The reducing sugar level showed rapid and steady increase throughout the fermentation and that of stachyose plus raffinose decreased slightly. From these results, a possible way of utilization of fermented SCR was proposed as a substitute for soybean in meju preparation.