Effect of sodium chloride on bakers' yeast growing in gelatin

In recent years, industrial fermentation researchers have shifted their attention from liquid to solid and semisolid culture conditions. We converted liquid cultures to the semisolid mode by adding high levels of gelatin. Previous studies on liquid cultures have revealed the inhibitory activity of mineral salts, such as NaCl, on the fermentation of sugars by yeasts. We made a kinetic study of the effects of 1 to 5% (wt/vol) NaCl on the alcoholic fermentations of glucose by Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a growth medium containing 16% gelatin. Our results showed that the effect of high salt content on semisolid culture is essentially the same as the effect on liquid culture; i.e., as the salt content increased, the following occurred: (i) the growth of yeasts decreased, (ii) the lag period of the yeast biomass curve lengthened, (iii) the sugar intake was lowered, (iv) the yield of ethanol was reduced, and (v) the production of glycerol was increased. We observed a new relationship correlating the area of kinetic hysteresis with ethanol production rate, acetaldehyde concentration, and the initial NaCl concentration.