Report on a microbial experiment in which you produce some fermented food. There are many different fermented foods that you could try to make, including bread, yogurt, cheese, kim chi, and alcoholic beverages – and a wide variety of bacteria and fungi (especially yeasts) are used in their production (Jyoti et al., 2016). If you choose to make a fermented food – try to do an experiment where you have at least 1 variable (resulting in at least 2 “groups” that will be compared (note: you may just have 1 sample for each of your “groups” – or, if you are ambitious, you can have replicates). For example, if you are fermenting some type of vegetable in salt water (e.g. kim chi) you could compare 2 different concentrations of salt, or 2 different types of vegetables. If you are making yogurt, you could compare using 2 different types or amounts of starter culture, or, you could compare 2 different methods of cooling down your milk+ starter culture mix, or cooling over 6 hours vs. 12 hours.
Your report should follow the typical format of a scientific report with the following sections:
Introduction - in which you discuss the type of fermented food that you will prepare and why it interests you.
Materials and methods: provide enough details so that someone else could replicate your procedure.
Results and discussion (these 2 sections are often combined): tell what happened ADD PICTURES. Collect data (perhaps at different time points to monitor how it tastes. Try to provide as many observations as possible – note that observations are information that you take in through your senses (or some instrument that extends your senses (taste, smell, vision, touch, hearing).
If applicable, make up a scale to rate sourness / bitterness / saltiness / sweetness / alcohol content, etc. of your product. Record other types of observations: are bubbles produced? Is there a color change? A volume change? For most fermentations you could collect data /observations at different time points. Where possible, put your data into a table or graphic (this will improve your grade).
Conclusions – briefly summarize your what you have learned from your experiment and comment on future directions if you would try making your product again.
Sample Solution