Pindang damulag or fermented carabeef is a native traditional food from Pampanga,
Philippines. It is produced by mixing thin slices of carabeef with curing ingredients, then
storing the mixture in an anaerobic condition, and left through the action of naturally
growing lactic acid bacteria (LAB) via fermentation for 1 week at room temperature.
However, the practice of production and consumption of pindang damulag is slowly dying
and there are only very limited scientific studies on pindang damulag. Therefore, the
study aimed to identify the LAB present and determine its contribution to the microbial
diversity, physico-chemical properties, and organic acid profile of pindang damulag
during natural fermentation. During fermentation, standard serial dilution and plating
show that all targeted groups of microorganisms (fungi, common bacteria, coliforms, acid
producing bacteria and LAB) grew significantly until the 3rd day. After day 3, only acid
producing bacteria and LAB grew significantly. There was also a significant decrease in
total soluble solids (TSS) from day 0 to day 3 (30.31 – 28.17°Brix), while titratable
acidity (TA) and pH were found to be statistically constant (3.5% at pH 5.97 – 3.6% at pH
5.9). Moreover, significant decrease in TSS (24.89, 22.76, and 20.53°Brix) and pH (5.60,
4.93, and 4.53) were observed, while TA increased significantly (4.5, 5.6, 6.6%) during
days 5, 7, and 9. After the culture dependent phenotypic and genotypic tests using 27F and
1492R primer pairs, LAB isolates were found to be homologous to Enterococcus faecium
and Weisella paramesenteroides. The former exhibited proteolytic activity on pindang
damulag which broke down the protein chains with approximate MW of 20.1KDalton as
observed in the acrylamide gel from SDS-PAGE. The other LAB was known to be a
heterofermentative LAB, which reflected on the predominance of other organic acids such
as citric acid (448.70 mg/100 g), acetic acid (1724 mg/100 g) other than the lactic acid
(4440 mg/100 g) alone, using RP-HPLC. Therefore, LAB was found to have a major role
in the food safety, food quality and overall profile of pindang damulag.