Identification of lactic acid bacteria isolated from tarhana during fermentation

In this study three different types of tarhana were produced and 107 lactic acid bacteria were isolated during the fermentation of tarhanas. For isolation, MRS agar and M17 agar were used. Only 86 out of 107 isolates could be subjected to the further cultural and biochemical identification tests. Of these, 35 isolates could be well identified as Lactobacillus plantarum (14 isolates), Lact. casei subsp. pseudoplantarum (7 isolates), Lact. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (1 isolate), Lact. helveticus (2 isolates), Lact. fermentum (2 isolates), Lact. brevis (6 isolates) and Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides (3 isolates). Forty two isolates could also be identified but they differed from typical strains of related lactic acid bacteria on the basis of their one or more cultural and biochemical characteristics. The remaining 9 isolates could not be correctly characterized into species by the identification tests used in the present study.