Raw material is important for flavors in fermented foods. Here, the effect of hulless barley on the microbiota in Chinese liquor was studied using two main cultivars (
heilaoya
and
dulihuang
). Six genera (
Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, Komagataella, Aspergillus, Pichia
, and
Weissella
) were identified as flavor producers.
Komagataella
, mainly correlated with esters, dominated in
heilaoya
, and
Pichia
, mainly correlated with carbonyls, dominated in
dulihuang
. The Mantel test indicated reducing sugar drove the succession of microbiota (
heilaoya
:
P
= 0.001;
dulihuang
:
P
= 0.006). Especially, glucose (
P
= 0.0226) and fructose (
P
= 0.0168) presented the most significant correlations with
Pichia
and
Komagataella
, respectively. The simulative fermentation confirmed
Komagataella phaffii
QK2 grew better in
heilaoya
with more fructose, whereas
Pichia fermentans
PF grew better in
dulihuang
with more glucose. This work highlighted the effect of raw material on microbiota, which would be beneficial for regulating the quality of fermented foods.
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