Whey is defined as milk serum, the liquid portion of milk left after the formation of curd. It is a by-product of cheese or casein and has many commercial uses. Whey has been considered as an excellent source of protein and offers an admirable amount of vitamins, minerals and lactose. Whey may be sweet or acid depending upon the type of casein or cheese coagulated. Over the few years, whey has captured the interest of market where it is sold as a complete protein pack flooded with nutritional imponents in today's populated world. Ample of beverages, both alcoholic (whey beer, whey wines) and non-alcoholic can be manufactured from whey. Whey drinks are highly nutritious and meet certain therapeutic purposes especially serve the purpose of those who are suffering with limited movement of limbs etc. The widespread research depicts the potential health benefits of whey protein concentrate.

 

Rice Bran Protein Fractions (RBPFs) albumin, globulin, glutelin and prolamin were extracted from untreated and parboiled rice bran and their comparative studies were made for the yield, protein content, bulk densities, water absorption capacities, Nitrogen Solubility Index (NSI), emulsion property and least gelation concentration. The maximum yield of the protein fractions were obtained in parboiled rice bran. The protein content in untreated rice bran protein fractions (URBPFs) albumin, globulin, glutelin and prolamin protein fractions were 44.16, 29.66, 9.42 and 7.76% whereas Parboiled Rice Bran Protein Fractions (PRBPFs) contained 28.39, 18.70, 31.01 and 6.91% protein, respectively. Bulk densities of all. Untreated Rice Bran Protein Fractions (URBPFs) were 0.121, 0.366, 0.354 and 0.219 whereas bulk densities of corresponding PRBPFs were 0.132, 0.278, 0.279 and 0.243, respectively. NSI values at pH 7 of all the URBPFs except globulin were greater than those of (PRBPFs). Parboiled rice bran protein fractions (PRBPFs) were found to be superior by emulsion and least gelation concentration properties than (URBPFs) Untreated rice brain fractions (protein fractions) URBPFs. All the values were found to be significantly different (p<0.05).

 

Preparation of wine from surplus apple fruits can reduces postharvest losses besides source of income. Apple wine using different sources of sugars i.e. honey, sugar, molasses and jaggary to raise the TSS of must to 24°B was prepared as per routine procedure. To impart medicinal value, spices and herb extract of hops, menth, anola, ginger and garlic @5% each was added to the must. The apparent effect of addition of extract was to delay the fermentation, not to stop it. Physico-chemical characteristics of apple wine before and after 6 months of maturation showed that the addition of extract did not affect the quality of wine adversely. From the sensory quality point of view, extract treated honey based, concentrate based or concentrate + apple juice based wines were superior to the control apple wine in most of the sensory qualities. The highest score was awarded to honey + herbs and spices extract (5%) based wine. Addition of extract increased the aldehyde, esters and total phenols which are expected to contribute the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the wine. The changes during maturation were desirable and in general, were the same as found in any wine. During maturation, reducing sugars, total esters, titrable acidity, ethanol and volatile acidity increased significantly while total phenols deseased but there was no effect on TSS and no significant decrease in total sugars and higher alcohols took place.

 

Efforts were made to optimize various parameters for production of carotenoids from Rhodotorula isolated from spoiled sauerkraut using apple pomace based media. Among various media tried (with varying concentration of peptone, yeast extract and dextrose), a medium having 40 g/L of apple pomace gave the highest production of carotenoids. Ferrous ammonium sulphate at a concentration of 0.5% and 0.2% showed higher carotenoids production when used with apple pomace (10, 20, 30 and 40 g/L) and 60 g/L, respectively. Among all the combinations tried, the highest carotenoid production (46.42 mg/100g) was observed in the medium supplemented with 0.5% ferrous ammonium sulphate and 40 g/L apple pomace. Whereas, urea at concentrations of 0.1% and 0.4% showed higher carotenoids production when used with apple pomace (10, 20, 40 and 60 g/L) and 30 g/L, respectively. Among all the combinations of urea and apple pomace, the highest carotenoid production (31.37 mg/100g) took place in the medium supplemented with 0.1% urea and 20 g/L apple pomace. Out of ferrous ammonium sulphate and urea, the former proved to be better than later. Use of pestle and mortar with glass beads proved an efficient method for the disruption of Rhodotorula cells to extract pigment. Out of various solvents used (acetone, petroleum ether, hexane and ethanol), petroleum ether was the best for the extraction of pigment. The pigment, a carotenoid (with two components) extracted from Rhodotorula showed 5% antioxidant activity.

 

In fermentation with herbs as the base medium, it was observed that certain phytoconstituents affect the pace of fermentation. Trachyspermum ammi is a common ingredient in many herbal based fermentation products especially in Ayurvedic system of medicine. Thymol constitutes 40-50% of the

volatile oil in this herb. Thymol is known to be nihibitory lactic acid fermentation. Evaluation of the effect of Thymol in alcoholic fermentation was undertaken Varying concentrations of Thymol 0.3, 0.1 and 0.05% were added to the sugar medium and kept for fermentation. The result of the study showed a complete inhibition of alcoholic fermentation conducted by yeast and Woodfordia fruticosa flowers at Thymol concentrations of 0.3 and 0.1% but a retarded pace was observed in case of lower concentration (0.05%).

In the present investigation, studies were carried out to evaluate the effect of medium consitituents and process paramters to get maximum biopigment production using Rhodotorula glutinis MTCC 1151. Screening of different media components indicated that a medium containing glucose (6%, w/v), urea (0.05%) and magnesium sulphate (0.05%) displayed higher pigment production than others. The optimization of different process parameters indicated that maximum pigment production was observed at pH 6.0, temperature 30°C, after 72 hrs incubation period under submerged fermentation.