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TRFLP analysis reveals that fungi rather than bacteria are associated with premature yeast flocculation in brewing

  • Environmental Microbiology
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Premature yeast flocculation (PYF) is a sporadic fermentation problem in the brewing industry that results in incomplete yeast utilization of fermentable sugars in wort. Culture-independent, PCR-based fingerprinting techniques were applied in this study to identify the associations between the occurrence of the PYF problem during brewery fermentation with barley malt-associated microbial communities (both bacteria and fungi). Striking differences in the microbial DNA fingerprint patterns for fungi between PYF positive (PYF +ve) and negative (PYF −ve) barley malts were observed using the terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) technique. The presence of terminal restriction fragments (TRFs) of 360–460 bp size range, for fungal HaeIII restriction enzyme-derived TRFLP profiles appeared to vary substantially between PYF +ve and PYF −ve samples. The source of the barley malt did not influence the fungal taxa implicated in PYF. TRFLP analysis indicates bacterial taxa are unlikely to be important in causing PYF. Virtual digestion of fungal sequences tentatively linked HaeIII TRFs in the 360–460 bp size range to a diverse range of yeast/yeast-like species. Findings from this study suggest that direct monitoring of barley malt samples using molecular methods could potentially be an efficient and viable alternative for monitoring PYF during brewery fermentations.

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Acknowledgments

We greatly acknowledge Adam Smolenski (Central Science Laboratory—Research, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia) for his assistance in TRFLP analysis. Joseph Lake (Food Science and Technology, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada) for performing the small-scale fermentation test. Ms. Kaur was the recipient of an Australian Research Council Industry Linkage scholarship (LP0560329) that was supported by Viterra Ltd.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Food Safety Centre, Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Mandeep Kaur & John P. Bowman

  2. School of Plant Science, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    Mandeep Kaur, Anthony Koutoulis & David E. Evans

  3. Viterra Ltd, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Doug C. Stewart, Megan Sheehy & Agnieszka Janusz

  4. Food Science and Technology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    R. Alex Speers

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  1. Mandeep Kaur
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Correspondence to Mandeep Kaur.

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Kaur, M., Bowman, J.P., Stewart, D.C. et al. TRFLP analysis reveals that fungi rather than bacteria are associated with premature yeast flocculation in brewing. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 39, 1821–1832 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-012-1188-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-012-1188-8

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