The microbial community structure of fermented grains in Chinese distilled liquor

The manufacture processes of Chinese light-aroma liquor including Daqu (the starter) making, alcoholic fermentation and distillation. Daqu is mixed with 9 folds weight of crushed and steamed sorghum, and then the mixtures are put into earthenware jars (placed underground) for fermentation. Normally, the fermentation period lasts for 20-30 days and the ethanol content in fermented grains reaches about 4% to 6%. Subsequently, all fermented grains are distilled and the liquor is collected. Fermented grains were investigated by high-throughput sequencing using a Miseq Benchtop Sequencer for 2?300 bp pair-end sequencing targeting the V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA gene on bacterium and targeting the ITS gene on fungus. It sheds new light on the vital factor to connect microbial community structure and metabolic activity.