PURE CULTURE FERMENTATIONS- BASIC REQUIREMENTS

Nowadays, many people are doing fermentation and getting involved with fermentors. There is no law preventing anyone from buying and playing with fermentors, as long they can afford it. Microbiologists, engineers from civil, chemical, bioprocessing disciplines and biotechnologists among others are all suddenly converted and up grade their status to fermentation technologists by virtue of them possessing the fermentors

Doing proper fermentation is not as simple as just knowing how to sterilize the fermentors or inoculating the fermentor and just monitoring the various parameters. This is especially so in works involving pure cultures! We just cannot assume that everything will be alright. There are certain precautions taken to ensure that the research is properly carried out. Otherwise you might end up getting the wrong data and making wrong conclusions!

1Ensure that the culture you are working with is pure culture. Make sure the pure culture you use is not contaminated in any way once the fermentation process is initiated.

You must do microbiological and biochemical observations that the culture and the microbes in the fermentor is pure and not contaminated. During the fermentation process samples must be regularly obtained to ensure that there is no contamination besides samples obtained for routine biochemical analyses

2 It is very important before the start of the fermentation to ensure that your fermentation is trully aseptic. Blank sterility runs need to be conducted to validate the aseptic integrity of your fermentor

3 Ensure data from the sensors such as ph and Dissolved oxygen are clearly monitored to indicate if your internal fermentor environment is truly anaerobic.

THE SIMPLE RULE IS THAT IN DOING ANY PURE CULTURE FERMENTATION IF IT IS CONTAMINATED, JUST ABORT THE EXPERIMENT AND REDO YOUR EXPERIMENT!