Vol. 11, Special Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
Bhawana Singh

Abstract:
Probiotics are living micro-organism, which mainly have several advantages on human’s health. Nowadays, demands for non-dairy probiotic beverages are increasing day by day as vegetarianism is becoming popular especially in developed countries, due to the factors such as lactose intolerance and cholesterol content associated with intake of probiotic dairy based products. Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) are a good source of nutrients. In the present study work, with the aim of utilizing cucumber-bottle gourd to develop a fermented beverage, formulated cucumber-bottle gourd were evaluated as a potential substrate for the production of probiotic fermented juice by Lactobacillus acidophilus. Numerous factors such as starter culture concentration, cucumber-bottle gourd concentration and fermentation time were optimized on the basis of growth and other physico-chemical parameters such as pH, Total Soluble Solids and Titratable Acidity. Among all the evaluated culture concentration, 10% inoculum size was observed to be most suitable with 16 hr of fermentation time at 37 ℃. The value of viable cell count, pH and titrable acidity in cucumber-bottle gourd juice after 16 hr of fermentation was 8.02×10⁸ CFU/ml, 3.64 and 1.84% respectively. Furthermore, during the storage period of 28 days at 4 ℃, the viable cell count of probiotic bacteria gradually decreased. In addition, change in physico-chemical parameters was observed during cold storage in which pH slightly dropped and TA slightly increased within 4 weeks of storage.