Microbial and Physicochemical Analysis of Kammerra, A Traditional Fermented Alcoholic Beverage in Konta Special Woreda, Southern Ethiopia.

Kammerra is a light yellow traditionally fermented alcoholic beverage commonly consumed in Konta special woreda, southern Ethiopia. This study evaluated microbial loads, physicochemical characteristics and nutritional values of Kammerra. A cross sectional study design was followed to document pertinent information related to traditional preparation techniques and socio-economic significances of the product. Microbiological safety of the samples, microbial succession in due course of controlled fermentation of Kammerra, nutritional dynamics and other related parameters were evaluated under laboratory conditions following standard microbiological techniques. Samples of Kammerra were collected every two week for twelve weeks from ten different kebeles, three samples per selected kebele and vending sites (houses) at the study site. The bacterial profiles of Kammerra samples were dominated by (mean log cfu/ml) Aerobic mesophilic bacteria (7.12±0.46), Enterobacteriaceae (7.07 ± 0.45), LAB (6.99±0.39), followed by coliforms (6.08±0.13), staphylococci (5.02±0.1), and Bacillus (3.61±0.06). The mean counts of yeast and molds were closer to the dominant bacterial profiles. A total of 249 microbial Isolates were characterized and identified at least to genus level following the standard microbiological methods. Among frequently isolated bacterial genera were Lactobacillus 25(10.04%), Lactococcus 24(9.64%), Staphylococcus 22(8.84%), followed by Bacillus spp. 13 (5.22%), Klebsiella 12(4.82%), Enterococcus 10(4.02%), Enterobacter 9(3.61%), Citrobacter 9(3.61%), Leuconostocs 7(2.81%), Pediococcus 7(2.81%), Salmonella 6(2.41%) and other many less frequently encountered genera. Saccharomyces 20 (8.03%) is the only dominant yeast strain encountered in many of the samples. The mean values recorded for temperature, moisture content, total solid, pH, Titratable acidity and alcohol content were 15.74±1.09, 96.74±1.13, 1.00±0.45, 4.29±0.58, 1.36±0.58 & 4.39±0.70, respectively. Furthermore, the mean values for percentage of crude protein, fat, total ash, carbohydrate and nitrogen were 15.42 ±1.46, 1.13± 0.62, 5.29± 2.18, 0.12± 0.07, 73.39± 2.46, and 0.18±0.09, respectively. Detection of some food borne pathogens in Kammerra samples calls for improvement of handling practice as the detected pathogens could be post production contaminants as the physicochemical properties of the ready -to-consume Kammerra are stringent for most microbes.