Technological Characteristics of Wild Non-Saccharomyces Sourced from Banana Fruit and Honey

This study is aimed at evaluating the technological characteristics of wild non-Saccharomyces sourced from banana fruit and wild honey. The isolation of yeasts was done according to standard microbiological procedures. Technological traits screened for are as follows: fermentation ability, alcohol production, flocculation ability, organic acid production, and hydrogen sulphide production. Five yeast isolates were identified as B10 (Candida tropicalis), B7 (Candida tropicalis), H4 (Candida tropicalis), H7 (Clavisporalusitaniae), and CY (Candida tropicalis), which are sugar fermenters. The percentage of alcohol produced from each sugar fermented by the yeast isolates are as follows: sucrose - B7(11.50%) > H7(8.62%) > CY (7.80%) > H4(4.88%) > B10 (4.11%); Glucose - B7(9.82%) > CY (6.28%) > B10(4.56%) > H7(4.03%) > H4(2.19%) and Fructose - H7(13.11%) > CY (9.40%) > B10(7.03%) > H4(4.41%) > B7(3.70%). Yeast isolate CY demonstrated high flocculation of 28.55 and 44.75 (%) at 5 and 15 (minutes). The organic acid produced by the yeast isolates B10, B7, CY, H4 and H7 are as follows 1.90±0.41, 3.10±0.41, 1.25±0.07, 3.90±0.41 and 2.40±0.41 (AU) respectively and Yeast isolates B7, CY, H4, and H7 produced low hydrogen sulphite concentration. Wild non-Saccharomyces could be the hope of the wine microbiologist to ease the challenges in the wine industry, as they competed flavourably with the commercial wine yeast.