Production of nata de pina and nata de soya / Siti Noraini Md Isa

Nata is a bacteria cellulose produced by Acetobacter aceti subspecies xylimtn through the fermentation of a fruit juice or plant extract. The production method is simple but precautions have to be taken to prevent contamination by other microorganism and losses of activity of the strain used. Nata de coco is produced from the fermentation of coconut water. In this project, new process productions of nata were created by using pineapple juice (called nata de pina) and soy bean milk (called nata de soya). Both nata de pina and nata de soya were process using the starter from coconut water culture and fermented under local conditions. From the result 0.8 litres of pineapple juice can produce about 39.34kg while 1.2 litres of soy bean milk can produce about 43.97kg of processed nata from each harvest. The fermentation period is about 8-10 days. Sensory evaluation was carried out and the results indicated that the entire panel members found the product developed had a better acceptability than nata de coco available in the market.