Breeding of New <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> Hybrids with Reduced Higher Alcohol Production for Light-Aroma-Type-<i>Xiaoqu</i> Baijiu Production

Baijiu, also referred to as "Chinese liquor", is a traditional spirit that originated in China over 2000 years ago and the world’s bestselling liquor today. It produced using solid-state fermentation process, often sorghum raw material, which complex microbial cocktail (called "Jiuqu") introduced initiate process. During fermentation, plethora of flavor-active metabolites by microbes. Depending on flavors formed, Baijiu can be subdivided into sauce-aroma-type, strong-aroma-type, light-aroma-type. A key feature light-aroma-type Xiaoqu (LATXB) its relatively low concentration higher alcohols (HA). However, reaching sufficiently HA concentrations without affecting overall taste flavor LATXB difficult. In this project, breeding was used develop new Saccharomyces cerevisiae hybrid strain for production, shows reduced production. This strain, dubbed “hybrid 5”, total 10.3%, compromising production other or efficiency when evaluated at an industrial scale (2 tons). Together, these results show potential produce superior, non-GM yeasts are directly applicable commercial