Utilization of roasted coconut water (RCW) as microbial culture medium

In spite of several confirmed research on the use of coconut water (CW) to the microbial growth media, there is very limited information reported on the use of roasted coconut water (RCW) as one of the growing ingredient for media formulation. The aim of this study was to access the growth and fermentation performance of L. plantarum BD8913C strains in roasted coconut water (RCW) compare to control. The L. plantarum BD8913C strains involved during the fermentation of roasted coconut water were observed and analysed for total plate count (TPC), total LAB count (TLABC), pH, total titratable acidity (TTA) and total soluble solids (TSS). The results showed that L. plantarum BD8913C strains grew well in RCW and showed similar growth patterns with
control. The viable cell counts of L. plantarum BD8913C strains reached approximately 2.65 x 10⁸ CFU/ml after 2 days of fermentation (48 hours) at 37°C. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated the significant difference (p<0.05) of total viable cell counts between RCW compare to control. Changes in pH, TTA and TSS were also significant (p<0.05) where pH decreased steadily from 5.23 to 3.67, TTA increased from 0.0279 to 0.0905%, while TSS decreased from 5.8 to 5.3°B. This indicated that RCW can be used as potential growing medium to L. plantarum BD8913C strains.