The present study shows that with liquid nitrogen stored inocula of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and standardized experimental procedure, flow microcalorimetry can be a valuable tool for monitoring in real time the alcoholic fermentation processes on line. The avaliation of cultural conditions contained different carbon sources for alcohol fermentation (sucrose, glucose, fructose, manose, maltose, galactose, molasses, honey and sugar cane) and their effects on the heat output recording is discussed. Some examples of diauxic growth is given, where the microcalorimeters serves to detect the temporal order of succession of alternating metabolic pathways.
flow microcalorimetry; heat output; fermentation; Saccharomyces cerevisiae
