A report on the development of Fermentation. Includes B.C. to A.D. coverage of how fermentation was utilized and also various scientists study on discovering the scientific process behind the process. Also included is the kinds of fermenters and its development over the years.

1. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTATION
Introduction
 Humanity has been fermenting food since the Neolithic age, long before
people understood the science behind the process.
 Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist, in 1857 showed that living
organisms initiate fermentation.
 We now understand the process behind fermentation and how it makes our
bread, cheese and wine taste better.
 Fermentation technology is the oldest of all biotechnological processes.
 Fermentation is any metabolic process in which microorganism’s activity
creates a desirable change in food and beverages. It may be increasing
flavour, preserving, providing health benefits, or more.
 Microbiologists consider fermentation as 'any process for the production
of a product by means of mass culture of micro-organisms'.
 The word “ferment” comes from the Latin verb “fervere”, which means “to
boil”. Ironically, fermentation is possible without heat.
 Fermentation or simply culturing, is all because of microbes. Microbes can
be found everywhere on Earth, including the soil that grows our food,
inside our stomach and also on the screen that you’re looking at right now!
While some play a role in causing diseases, many are good, playing a key
role in our day-to-day activities, and are the reason for our existence.
 Microbes form communities called cultures and colonize. As they start to
convert naturally occurring sugars in the food into energy for themselves,
microbes cause spontaneous fermentation in the surrounding food or
beverage.
 During fermentation, these small organisms consume available
biodegradable material - like the sugar - without the presence of oxygen.
This process is known as anaerobic digestion.
How Did Fermentation Start?
 There is no single line answer to this question. Nobody can state with
certainty that this process started in one particular way, just like human
evolution.
 There might not be an exact record of how and where did fermentation
start. However, historians have traced signs of human-induced
fermentation dating back to as far as 6000 B.C.
 Fermentation is as old as humanity itself or even older.

2.  Some scholars say that the use of fermentation to make bread rise and to
produce alcoholic beverages is as old as the development of agriculture
itself, which almost dates back to 8000 BC.
 It’s likely that fermentation started spontaneously, due to action of some
wild yeast or other microbe landing in a bowl of food, a jug of grape juice
or might have been already present in some freshly milled grain. Then
when the temperature became ideal, it brought about the process.
 It is considered that milk of camels, goats, sheep, and cattle were the first
to be fermented. This highly perishable commodity was unintentionally
fermented way back in 10,000 B.C. This is due to naturally occurring
microflora present in milk. [In microbiology, collective bacteria and other
microorganisms in a host are known as microflora. Milk provides a
favourable environment for the growth of microorganisms. Yeasts, moulds
and a broad spectrum of bacteria can grow in milk, particularly at
temperatures above 16°C].
 There is a theory that yogurt was first produced in goat bags draped over
the backs of camels in North Africa at temperatures of 40°C. These bags
or pouches were made of stomachs of animals especially, goats. Due to the
humid temperature the milk turned sour and the bacteria in the goat bag
helped in forming of yogurt. So, whenever people carried milk in goat
pouches, they were actually making yogurt from it!
 One of the earliest record of fermentation dates back to 6000 B.C. in the
Fertile Crescent. [A crescent-shaped area of fertile land in the Middle East,
spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and other
countries. It was the center of the Neolithic development of agriculture,
and also once considered as the “cradle of civilization”].
 After this every civilization have made use of fermentation and has at least
one fermented food in their culinary heritage.
 The use of fermentation, particularly for beverages, has existed since the
Neolithic age.
 Ayurvedic wines as medicine is documented in the ancient Indian healing
system of Ayurveda.
 Arishthas and Asavas are fermented juices, and herbs. Draksharishta, the
name indicates grape wine.
 Fermented foods have a religious significance in Judaism and Christianity.
The Baltic god Rugutis was worshiped as the agent of fermentation.
 Signature fermented food from cultures around the world:
i) Kimchi from Korea.
ii) Dosey from India.

3. iii) Sauerkraut from Germany. Although not originating there.
 Fermented foods are also used in Eastern cultures for medicinal purposes.
Links between fermented foods and health can be traced as far back as
ancient Rome and China, and remain an area of great interest for
researchers in modern times.
Earliest evidence of fermentation
 Earliest evidence of fermentation for food preservation anywhere in the
world was discovered recently by archaeologists in the Scandinavian
region of Southern Sweden.
 2,00,000 fish bones were uncovered from the remains of a 9,000-year-old
storage pit. Which dates back to 7,000 B.C. – Early Mesolithic age.
 Salt wasn’t used for this fermentation, instead barks of pine and fat of Seals
were used to acidify the fish and then were wrapped in skins of wild boar
and buried in a pit covered with muddy soil; requiring cold temperatures
for preservation, which was readily available in the region.
 This was a very skillful way of preserving food without using salt, and the
scale of preservation too was huge.
 This hints at the beginning of food preservation and makes us think about
the raging developmental changes that has taken place over the years.
Timeline of Fermentation
 Around 8000 B.C. – Humans used fermentation to make bread and to
produce primitive alcoholic beverage.
 4000 BC to 1000 B.C. – Ancient Chinese dynasties, were using
fermentation for producing other grain-based beverages like rice wine and
also to treat skin infections using fermented soybean.
 4000 B.C. – The Egyptians used yeast to make bread and wine.
 1750 B.C. – Barley was fermented to beer by the Sumerians.
 300 B.C. – The Chinese applied fermentation to preserve vegetables.
 220 B.C. – Start of use of fermented tea to treat a variety of illnesses.
 Around 210 A.D. – Greek physician Galen believed that digestion
operated in the same way as grape fermentation, in the liver.
 Till mid-17th
century – Fermentation was believed to come under
alchemy, was considered a mystical process rather than a scientific process.
 1659 – Thomas Willis published a work on fermentation as a mechanism
to health and disease. This created a misconception that fermentation of the
blood inside our body causes fever and other diseases.

4.  Mid-17th
century – Van Helmont believed that digestion, breathing and
other biological processes were carried out by a ferment. His studies of
fermentation and yeasts led him to realize that burning charcoal and
fermenting grapes led to the expulsion of the same gas – CO2. His work
made Fermentation to shift from mysticism to scientific sphere.
 1680 – The ‘ferment’ in wine were first physically observed by Anton van
Leeuwenhoek, who found that they were yeast spores. Leeuwenhoek is
now widely considered to be The First Microbiologist. Only after this
observation the true scientific study of fermentation and yeast began.
Sequencing of the yeast genome in 1996 concluded the biological study on
yeasts and ultimately paved way for the ambitious Human Genome Project.
 1781 – First attempt at artificially producing yeast was done by an English
pharmacist, Thomas Henry. He did this by impregnating flour and water
with CO2 (then known as fixed air). This was arguably the beginnings of
the biological engineering of yeast.
 1789 – Lavoisier published the first account of the changes which occur
chemically during fermentation using yeast. He was able to describe the
transformation of sugar into ethanol and gas using a chemical equation. He
was also the first person to postulate that the principle of conservation of
mass also applied in chemical reactions.
 1815 – Gay-Lussac revised the balance of Lavoisier’s equation, leading to
the correct empirical equation for fermentation in the late 20th
century,
which is still known as the Gay-Lussac equation.
C6H12O6 ⇋ 2CO2 + 2CH3CH2OH
 1840 – Schwann's conclusion was that “Fermentation is the result of
process occurring in living beings”. He stated that sugar was converted to
alcohol as part of an organic biological process based on the action of a
living yeast; its presence was necessary for the process to occur. This was
a strong evidence against the theory of spontaneous generation which was
believed at that time. So, the development and understanding of
fermentation has even helped in proving and disproving evolution theories.
 1857 – Louis Pasteur referred to fermentation as “the result of life without
air” and found that aeration inhibits fermentation. He said that “air has
always been considered the enemy of wine” and can inhibit fermentation,
this is still termed the Pasteur effect today. He found that lactic acid was a
byproduct and was the reason why wines turned sour. He also led the
development of pasteurization of milk and foods prone to spoilage. He is
rightly regarded as France’s greatest scientist.

5.  1858 – Moritz Traube published experimental evidence finally suggesting
that fermentation itself is a living process. He suggested that enzymes act
as catalysts to activate the reaction, which is now accepted as the primary
mechanism for enzyme-controlled reactions.
 1907 – German chemist and zymologist demonstrated that enzymes in
yeast cells and not the yeast cells itself causes fermentation. He showed
that an enzyme, zymase, can be extracted from yeast cells and that it causes
sugar to break up into carbon dioxide and alcohol. He was awarded the
Nobel prize in chemistry in 1907.
 1927 – Arthur Harden and Hans Euler-Chelpin determined exactly how
enzymes cause fermentation. They managed to describe what happens in
sugar fermentation and the action of fermentation enzymes using physical
chemistry. This explanation led to the understanding of the important
processes taking place in the muscles for the supply of energy. Won the
Nobel prize for their work on fermentation in 1929.
 1940 – Technology was developed to use fermentation to produce
antibiotics.
 Present day – Fermentation is used to produce chemicals, medicines such
as antibiotics and acholic beverages in an industrial scale, as well as to
make bread rise and to preserve many types of food. Fermentation
processes are used today in many modern biotech organizations for the
production of enzymes to be used in pharmaceutical processes,
environmental remediation, and other industrial processes.
 After all of this…it would seem that fermentation has been on a wild ride
over the course of human knowledge, mostly misunderstood and blamed
for processes far grander and more mystic than its simple and humble
yeasty origins.
Development of popular product – Beer
“VIDEO”
Apparatus for Fermentation
Fermenters are the vessels or the tanks in which fermentation is carried out.
Fermenter or simply a fermentation vessel can be anything. It can be a simple
steel vessel used in homes to prepare a batter for idli or dosey, because
fermentation can be brought about anywhere in whatever condition, it can be
brought about in a large sophisticated tank made of non-corrosive material which
has a capacity of more than thousand litres. We know how ‘we’ ferment and how

6. the big industries ferment. This clearly shows how humans have mastered the art
of fermentation and can now ferment at any scale of choice.
Let’s look at how the development of fermenters have taken place over the years-
 8,000 B.C. – The first fermentation vessel was likely made of clay which
was the basic earthenware, often called terracotta. Earthenware is still
widely used in the 21st century, because it is heatproof and coldproof and
thus used for cooking and freezing as well as for serving.
 7,000 B.C. – Skins of wild boars and seals acted as a fermentation vessel
for people living in the Scandinavian region. As my teammate already
stated it, fish were acidified and later wrapped in the skins, bringing about
fermentation and also helping in preservation when buried underground.
 1,250 - 1,000 B.C. – Tightly lidded bronze vessels were used by the Shang
and Western Zhou Dynasty of China. They fermented rice and millet in
these bronze vessels to form wine. This was excavated from elite burials
of high-ranking individuals. The most interesting thing to note here is that
the archaeologists discovered these bronze vessels with liquid still inside
it, intact, even after 3,000+ years!
This is because the tightly fitted seals corroded with time creating a
hermetic seal [any type of sealing that makes a given object airtight-
preventing the passage of air, oxygen, or other gases].
 800 - 600 B.C. – Amphoras pottery was used to bring about fermentation.
Mainly used for fermenting wine and also storing and transporting.
 57 B.C. - 935 A.D. – Brown ceramic pots called onggi was developed to
ferment vegetables. Present-day national food of both North & South
Korea – Kimchi was developed during this period because of prevalence of
Buddhism which inspired vegetarianism.
 Let’s shift to 1910s. By now fermentation technique was being used
throughout the world by different cultures. We saw how eventually people
began to clearly understand the science behind the process.
There was no significant development in how fermentation was brought
about, until now. It was understood that fermentation could be applied in
other fields as well, and we could benefit from it.
 During WWI – Chaim Weizmann, Russia born Scientist who later on
became the 1st
President of Israel, developed a fermenter for producing
Acetone industrially. The importance of maintaining aseptic conditions
was recognised and design, and construction of pipes, joints and valves
was held important. This helped in maintaining a sterile environment and

7. also the handler had more control over what went inside the fermentation
vessel.
 1930s – de Becze and Liebmann used the first big capacity (above 20l)
fermenter for the production of yeast. This was the first aerobic fermenter
used, in central Europe, for the production of compressed yeast
[Compressed yeast is a fresh yeast from which most of its water was
removed, and compressed into small blocks. Today this yeast is the most
common form of commercial baker's yeast - Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It
is used by baking professionals]. This fermenter consisted of a large
cylindrical tank with air introduced at the base via a network of perforated
pipes. Later it was modified to have mechanical impellers to increase the
rate of mixing, and to break up and disperse the air bubbles. This led to the
requirement of compressed air [Compressed air is an important medium
for transfer of energy in industrial processes, and is used for power tools.
It produces air at higher pressures and typically at lower volume]. Today
oxygen is supplied to aerobic fermenters via blower and compressor
systems.
 1934 – Strauch and Schmidt of Germany patented a system in which the
aeration tubes were introduced with water and steam for cleaning and
sterilization.
 1944 – Submerged culture fermentation (SmF) technique for Penicillin
production was used. [A method for growing pure cultures of aerobic
bacteria in which microorganisms are incubated in a liquid medium
subjected to continuous, vigorous agitation].
On March 1, 1944, Pfizer opened the first commercial plant for large-scale
production of penicillin by submerged culture in Brooklyn, New York.
Here aseptic conditions, good aeration and agitation were essential. This
probably led to the development of carefully designed and purpose-built
fermenters.
 Present day – In the present scenario fermentation is knowingly done by
every household in the world to produce ready to eat foods like curd at
home using just a steel or plastic vessel. There are even air tight glass jars
sold under “fermentation jars” category available in the market. These are
used domestically, catering to a family. We don’t get to decide on the strain
of microbes that goes inside the fermenting jars; its random and the
fermentation product is multi directional.
 Billion-dollar businesses that are built around this simple phenomenon.
Industries apply fermentation as per their needs on a larger and highly

8. controlled scale (controlling the temperature and Ph with a touch of a
button).
 Fermentation has come a long way since it’s unexpected discovery by our
ancestors, and has been on the developmental track ever since.
 Started out with a naturally occurring, humble Saccharomyces cerevisiae
– yeast, this significant process is now being brought about by artificial
strains of numerous microbes, each used to obtain a commercially desired
product ready for human consumption.