## 2 Results and Discussion
### Sensory Evaluation  
The processes of the fermentation and maturation of meat products are primarily aimed at insuring product safety, improving the flavour, odour, texture, and colour, and extending the storage time. It is expected that the addition of probiotic microorganisms will also have a positive effect on the aforementioned features and provide a health-promoting effect, increasing the attractiveness of the product offered to consumers. The general sensory quality of the probiotic and control sausages was high both after the maturation and during storage. The overall quality of the probiotic sausages was rated the highest, with a score of 7.7 in the 6 th week of storage; in the 12 th week, it slightly decreased to 7.1 (Figure 1b). After the fermentation and during storage, no statistically significant differences were found in the overall quality assessment between the sausages with LAB and control sausages. The high overall quality of the control and probiotic sausages after fermentation and during storage can be attributed to the high scores of positive sensory factors, such as smoky odour, dried meat odour, colour tone, and dried meat flavour (Figure 1a,b). On the other hand, negative sensory features, such as the perception of bitter flavour, storage and other flavours, and spicy and other odours, show a low intensity. In the 6 th week of the storage of the probiotic sausages, a statistically significant increase in the ratings for dried meat odour, colour tone, colour homogeneity, dried meat flavour, and smoked flavour was found (Figure 1b). In the 12 th week of storage, the range of changes was smaller, and a statistically significant decrease was recorded only for the dried meat flavour. Similar positive sensory assessments were performed by [PERSON] et al. [PERSON] et al. (2018). After 40 days of storage, dry fermented sausages with _Lactobacillus heleticus_ RO52 and _Bifidobacterium longum_ RO175, as well as _Pediococcus pentosaceus_ and _Staphylococcus xylosus_ strains, in most variants, received sensory scores above 7 on a 9-point scale. A comparison of the sensory qualities of both the study products, made after the fermentation process, showed that the control sausages were characterised by a significantly higher score for dried meat odour and flavour, and a lower score for sour flavour (Figure 2). In the 6 th week of storage, a comparison of both the products showed a significant increase in the assessment of colour homogenity and higher values for the sour flavour of sausages with probiotic strains (Figure 3). In the case of the sausages without probiotics, a statistically significant increase in colour tone was noted in the 6 th and 12 th weeks of storage, and, in the 12 th week, the evaluation of the dried meat flavour was significantly more positive (Figure 1a). After 12 weeks of storage, the probiotic sausages showed significantly lower scores in terms of colour homogenity and smoked flavour compared with the product from the control group (Figure 4). The higher score for sour flavour in the 12 th week of storage can be explained by the growing number of LAB cells in the probiotic sausages. This did not affect the general quality scores, which were similar for both study products (Figure 1a,b). These results are concordant with those of [PERSON] et al. [PERSON] et al. (2018). They concluded that the use of a multi-strain starter, including _S. xylosus_ SX16 and _L. plantarum_ CMRC6, accelerated the acidification and proteolysis during ripening, improving the microbiological safety and sensory attributes of the fermented dry sausage. According to other studies, LAB bacteria may adversely affect the flavour profile. In the studies by [PERSON] et al. [PERSON] et al. (2018), it was found that the addition of _Lactobacillus sakei_ and _Pediococcus pentosaceus_ to fermented pork salami was responsible for excessive acidity, and it was determined that the pH of the product should not be lower than 5. Figure 1: (**a**) Sensory quality characteristics of control dry fermented sausages without _L.