Background and Objectives: The use of Bacillus probiotics is an interesting way for manufacturing healthier meat and meat products as functional foods and also a valuable solution for overcoming the constraints related to the stability of probiotic strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium during processing and storage of foods. This work is an attempt to investigate the influence of common household cooking methods on the viability of Bacillus coagulans and Bacillus subtilis as probiotic sporeformers inoculated into cooked sausages.

Materials and Methods: After preparation of the final suspensions of Bacillus coagulans ATCC 31284 and Bacillus subtilis var. Natto ATCC 15245 spores, they were supplemented in the sausage samples with different meat types and percentages. The inoculated cooked sausages were then submitted to common household cooking methods, i.e. boiling, microwaving, and deep fat frying. Enumeration of the studied spores was carried out on trypticase soy agar after exposure to a heat shock at 68°C for 20 min. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) of SPSS-20 was used for statistical analysis of the data. A Taguchi L₉ experimental design comprising 3 variables and 3 levels was performed using MINITAB-17 to determine main effects of the parameters of household cooking process.

Results: The results obtained in this study showed that boiling, followed by microwaving and deep fat frying, had the greatest viability and recovery of the studied spores supplemented in the cooked sausages, respectively (P < 0.05). Furthermore, results of the Taguchi experimental method revealed that the type of Bacillus probiotics, followed by the formulation of cooked sausages and the method of household cooking of cooked sausages had main effects on the concentrations of the spores examined, respectively.

Conclusions: The information provided here suggests that boiling as a common household cooking method retained maximum viability and recovery of the studied Bacillus probiotics supplemented in the cooked sausage samples. Besides, the type of spores was the principle parameter, which had a critical effect on the response (i.e. concentrations of the studied Bacillus probiotics).

Keywords: Bacillus probiotic, B. coagulans, B. subtilis, Cooked sausage, Household cooking method