In this paper, bifurcation analysis has been carried out for two continuous bioreactors operated in series with recycle from the second reactor. The existence of multiplicity of steady states is analyzed by considering Contois growth kinetics in the process model. It was observed that there exist two possible steady states of which one is trivial (wash out condition). Stability analysis is carried out to determine the stability of these steady states and it was observed that both these steady states are unstable in nature. Bifurcation analysis has been carried out for substrate and biomass concentration with dilution rate as the bifurcation parameter. Effect of recycle ratio, substrate separation factor and biomass separation factor is studied and analyzed. It was observed that Hopf bifurcation occurs at a dilution rate of 1.0208 with purely imaginary Eigen values which showed that sustained oscillatory behavior exists in the substrate concentration of the second reactor. The significance of different bifurcation points and the operating conditions by considering biomass and substrate concentrations in each reactor is studied and it was observed that the bioreactors need to be operated at intermediate dilution rates to obtain improved conversion and yield. (C) 2014 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.