# Flavour Compensation Role of Yeast Strains in Reduced-Salt Dry Sausages: Taste and Odour Profiles
## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Physical, Microbial, and Quality Characteristic Analysis  
As depicted in Table 3, the moisture content in all dry sausages decreased significantly during fermentation (\(p<0.05\)). After 12 days of fermentation, the moisture content de creased from approximately 70.73% to 18.35%, 19.36%, 19.79%, 19.85%, and 21.56% for the CT, CR, PK, TD, and DH treatments, respectively. The CT treatment exhibited a lower moisture content than the CR treatment, which was due to the different salt concentrations. The higher salt concentration may cause higher moisture evaporation [34]. The treatment inoculated with \(D\). _hansenii_ had the highest moisture content among all inoculated treatments on day 12 (\(p<0.05\)). This phenomenon of delayed moisture content reduction was previously reported by [PERSON] et al. [35] who reported that the inoculation of \(D\). _hansenii_ could significantly increase the moisture content at the end of fermentation. Nevertheless, this phenomenon was not observed in the PK and TD treatments in our experiments, which may be due to the better ability of \(D\). _hansenii_ to accumulate Na\({}^{+}\) and maintain cation homeostasis to avoid the osmotic shock induced by a large amount of salt [25]. After 8 days of fermentation, the pH of dry sausages gradually decreased from approximately 6.09 to 5.59, 5.40, 5.16, 5.07, and 5.31 for the CT, CR, PK, TD, and DH treatments (\(p<0.05\)). This may be due to the consumption of carbohydrates by the lactic acid bacteria, resulting in the accumulation of lactic acid. Moreover, on day 8, the pH of inoculated sausages was lower than those of the two controls, which may be because yeast inoculation makes carbohydrates easier to metabolise by lactic acid bacteria [8]. The pH of all sausages was steady from day 8 to day 12, which may have been from the NH\({}_{3}\), amines, and alkaline compounds produced by protein hydrolysis [36] and the decomposition of organic acids metabolised by yeast and fungi [37]. The yeast counts in the CT, CR, and TD treatments significantly increased from day 0 to day 8 (\(p<0.05\)), and the PK and DH treatments significantly increased from day 0 to day 4 (\(p<0.05\)). The LAB counts in the CT, CR, TD, and DH treatments significantly increased from day 0 to day 8 (\(p<0.05\)), and the PK treatment significantly increased from day 0 to day 4 (\(p<0.05\)). After reaching the maximum value, microbial counts decreased significantly (\(p<0.05\)) in all treatments except for yeast counts in the CR treatment and LAB counts in the CT treatment. This may be attributed to the suitable environment at the early stage of fermentation; however, nutrient consumption and low moisture content continued as fermentation progressed. After 12 days of fermentation, there was no significant difference in the yeast count among the inoculated treatments (\(p>0.05\)); however, yeast inoculation affected LAB growth. The LAB counts in the PK, TD, and DH treatments reached 7.56, 7.20, and 7.56 log CFU/g, respectively, whereas the CR treatment with the same salt content was 7.33 log CFU/g. Different yeast species are known to interact differently with LAB [37]. In this study, _T. delbrueckii_ inhibited LAB growth whereas _P. kudriavzevii_ and _D. hansenii_ promoted LAB growth. The decreasing moisture content described above may be responsible for the significant increase in shear force during fermentation (\(p<0.05\)). The inoculated sausages exhibited a significantly lower shear force than the controls (\(p<0.05\)). On day 12, the shear force of the PK, TD, and DH treatments reached 16.56, 18.58, and 16.59 N, respectively, which was well below the values observed in the uninoculated CT (26.05 N) and CR (20.57 N) treatments. This was consistent with previous studies that reported that some yeasts could promote the degradation of myofibrillar proteins causing a decrease in shear force, particularly at the end of fermentation [38].