BIOCHEMICAL-CHANGES OCCURRING DURING THE MANUFACTURE OF BUDU

The changes that occur during the commercial production of budu, a Malaysian fish sauce were examined. It was shown that the maximum volume of liquid was produced after 140 days and that proteolysis continued to occur until 200 days when 56% of the insoluble fish protein had been hydrolysed into soluble form. The colour was produced early during the fermentation. The aroma constituents, ammonia and trimethylamine, were produced early in the fermentation process, but the volatile fatty acids did not appear when fresh fish (Stolephorus) was used for the fermentation. In the commercial production, n‐butanoic acid concentration remained constant during the fermentation but ethanoic acid did increase during the period. The salt concentration and the pH were approximately constant throughout, at 26% and 5.65, respectively. Copyright © 1979 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd