A Preliminary Study on the Physicochemical, Microbiological and Sensory Characteristics of Purslane and/or Cayenne Pepper Added Drinking Yogurt, A Traditional Anatolian Beverage

Drinking yogurt (ayran) is one of the valuable traditional Anatolian dairy products. Ayran is prepared traditionally through adding water and salt to yogurt or manufactured industrially by fermentation of yogurt culture added diluted milk. Nowadays, interest and consumption of traditional different fermented dairy products have spread rapidly around the world. Although cucumber-yogurt (cacik), soda ayran, fruitful ayran have a commercial face, there is still locally consumed drinking yogurt ayran types. One of the locally consumed ayran types is herby-hot ayran from Puturge-Malatya. In the preparation of herby-hot ayran, the flavoring herbs/spices are added to the ayran in earthenware pots then buried under the soil and left to ferment spontaneously for at least 15 days. The objectives of this study were to determine physicochemical, microbiological, and sensory properties of traditional purslane and/or Cayenne pepper added drinking yogurt from Puturge-Malatya, Turkey. The analysis results were found total dry matter 5.80-7.03 %, pH 3.77-4.30, titratable acidity 0.61-1.17 % lactic acid, serum separation 11.17-21.5 mL (50 mL)-1. Levels of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) ranged from 7.00 to 8.04 log cfu mL-1 and the mold and yeast (MY) levels varied from 5.25 to 6.98 log cfu mL-1 for studied samples. Properties of traditional herby-hot ayran are found different from plain ayran. The results demonstrated that this product may have the potential for consumer preference. To reveal the changes occurring in product characteristics during the fermentation period would be thus of interest.