The effect of indigenous caproic acid producing consortia inoculation on the succession pattern of pit mud prokaryotic community used in Chinese strong flavor Baijiu fermentation

The fermentation of traditional Chinese strong flavor Baijiu is a batch fermentation process carried out in traditional fermentation pits with mixed microbial communities. The pit mud serves as the primary source of prokaryotic anaerobic microorganisms, and the aging of pit mud essentially represents a stable state gradually formed by the metabolic activities of the microbial community under specific physicochemical conditions. However, the mechanism of action of caproic acid producing bacteria (hereinafter"CPBs") in the process of improving pit mud remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted high-throughput sequencing to analyze the spatial variation patterns of the prokaryotic community structure of pit mud samples during continuous batch fermentation, aiming to elucidate the impact mechanism of CPBs on the aging of pit mud.