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Cell immobilization comprises the retention of metabolically active cells inside a polymeric matrix. In this study, the production of barley malt vinegar using immobilized Gluconobacter oxydans cells has proposed as a new method for commercial houses. Barley malt wort was converted to ethanol by Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain 35 producing 5.2% (v/v) ethanol. This ethanol was used for vinegar production using encapsulated (calcium alginate and agar) cells of Gluconobacter oxydans NBRC 3432. The optimized conditions for malt vinegar production were designed by response surface methodology. Both of encapsulation materials were statistically similar for acetic acid production and produced total acidity upto 4.66% (w/v). By semi continuous fermentation, the time of acetic acid fermentation was reduced to 14 days compared to 28 days of batch fermentation. In terms of economy of time, calcium alginate column was proved to be the best fermentation column when compared to agar bead column with the fermentation efficiency of 85.5%.
Key words: Barley malt, semi continuous, acetous fermentation, immobilization.