Date syrup and baker's yeast production

Date syrup might be considered as one of the innovative and attractive byproducts in date processing for the habitants in west and southwest Asia. Date syrup, which is an important byproduct of dates, was obtained by water extraction and evaluated as a substrate for baker's yeast production, in a batch laboratory-scale fermentation. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was cultivated in the date syrup (20 g/L) based medium. Batch growth was studied in shaken flasks. The diauxic growth was observed with two specific growth rates, 0.22 and 0.035 h(-1), where the first relates to date sugar consumption and the second to ethanol uptake. Addition of a corn steep liquor (CSL) increased the dry cell mass, and a maximum yield was observed at 7% CSL in culture media. The effects of different carbon sources on biomass and yield indicated that date syrup could be evaluated as a favorable carbon source in baker's yeast production.