Water kefir as a model system for data-driven fermentations
Mixed-culture fermentations are notoriously difficult to monitor and control — yet they underpin some of the most complex and valued food and beverage products. I propose water kefir as a convenient laboratory-scale model system for developing and validating data-driven modelling approaches applicable to these systems. Water kefir is fermented by a small, definable consortium of primarily yeasts, lactic acid bacteria, and acetic acid bacteria that collectively produce organic acids, ethanol, CO₂, and aroma compounds from simple sugars. Its appeal as a model system lies in experimental tractability: synthetic community composition, substrate, and process conditions can all be deliberately varied, while short fermentations generates rich, multivariate time-series data such as pH, dissolved oxygen, sugar consumption, organic acid profiles, and headspace volatiles. In this Lightning Talk, I will introduce the audience to water kefir fermentations and propose how water kefir fermentations could serve as a low-cost, fast-cycling platform for testing mechanistic models.
- Lightning talk
Speaker
Samuel Breselge
Professorship for Functional Beverage Technology, TUM
Prof. Breselge studied at Leibniz University Hannover from 2010 to 2016 (B.Sc., M.Sc.). From 2016 to 2019, he completed his PhD in Biology at Northeastern University in Boston (USA). He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher and Research Officer at the Teagasc Food Research Centre in Ireland from 2020 to 2026. In 2026, he joined the Technical University of Munich as Assistant Professor for Functional Beverage Technology.... read more