THE USE OF UTAZI LEAFEXTRACT AS A MEANS OF EXTENDING THESHELF LIFE OF LOCALLY BREWED SORGHUMBEER
ABSTRACT
Sorghum beer is an indigenous African alcoholic beverage that has been longtraditionally brewed in the Savannah region of Nigeria; over the years there has been a problem with the Keep ability of these beers. Contemporally, a conceptual approach of hopping these beers with an indigenous hop extracts; Utazi (Gongronemalatifolium) has relatively improved its chemical properties compared to the Unhopped beer. This has been proven from the following; appreciable decrease in its ethanolcontent, total acidity, volatile acidity, Aspergilus prevalence from the forth day of its bench storage relative to the Unhopped beer which manifested in the second day. This clearly shows that the hopped sorghum beer with Utazi has a decreased rate of deterioration compared to the conventional Unhopped counterpart.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION:
Beer is an alcoholic beverage made from cereal grains, usually barley, but alsocorn, sorghum, millet, rice, wheat, and oats. Beer is made using a process calledfermentation, in which microscopic fungi called yeast consume sugars in the grain,converting them to alcohol and carbon dioxide gas (Michael, et al, 2004). Over 70styles of beer are available today. Each style derives its unique characteristics fromits ingredients and subtle differences in its brewing process (Gunsch, 2010).Throughout history, wherever cereal grains were grown, humans made a beerlike beverage from them: they used wheat in Mesopotamia, Barley in Egypt, Millet andSorghum in other parts of Africa, rice in Asia, and corn in the Americas. Today, beer making is a major industry worldwide (Dornbush, et al, 2006).Our indigenous African Beers are sourced fermented drinks made withSorghum, Maize or Mill et. ‘Pito’ is a dark brown traditional alcoholic beverage of
Binis in the western part of Nigeria prepared from malted grains (Maize, Sorghumor both) with a pleasant sour taste (Ekundayo, et al, 1969). ‘Burukutu’ another indigenous alcoholic drink made from sorghum,Savannah region of Nigeria(Uveve, et al , 200)The production process of both drinks involvesfermentation atits initial production stage and comes out as an alcoholic drink. Other locally madedeetrinks include; ‘KunuZaki’, ‘Bouza,’ ‘Merissa’, ‘Komoni’ and Bogule. The shelf life of these drinks isaffected by their method of preparation, storage methodsand the presence of a hop extracts in them (Morcos, et al, 1973).Some of our locally sourced tropical hop extracts include Bitter leaf extracts(
Vernon iaamygdalina ), Utazi leaf extracts ( Gongronemalatifolium ) both leaveshave been found to contain an Anti-bactericidal agent which is capable of extending the useful life of these indigenous beers (Uveve, et al, 2002). Freezing and coolingare another different ways of preservation using low temperature. Freezing involvesthe changing of liquid to solid which can occur between the 0.5 to 3temperature ranges. Chilling which is a level of freezing involves makingsomething cool especially using a refrigerator. Such things could be referred to as ‘refrigerated’. Chilling can occur between 0
to 5. These conditions help to preserve the quality by prolonging the life our indigenous drinks. (Dog fish HeadCraft Brewery, 2010).
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE
(i) To determine the shelf life of a locally brewed Sorghum Beer.
(ii) To check the effect of ‘Utazi’ leaf extract on the shelf life of the locally
brewed Sorghum Beer.
