Eke-Ejiofor J^1,, Nnodim L. C¹

Tigernut drink is faced with the challenge of short shelf-life, which has affected its use for different nutritious drinks, therefore fermentation process which is a form of food preservation technology for limiting or reducing post-harvest wastage associated with tiger nuts usage at harvest, could help to convert it into wine. Must (the first step in wine making) was prepared from dried and fresh tigernut filtrate blended with zobo flower extract, with inoculum developed from commercial wine yeast. Fermentation of dried and fresh tigernut must were carried out over a period of seven (7) days, while microbial, physicochemical and sensory properties of the blends were also analyzed. Dried and fresh tiger nut wines were compared with commercial grape wine as control. The inoculum developed, had a yeast count of 10⁸ and 10% of must volume. The initial pH of dried and fresh tigernut musts were 4.50 and 4.20, which decreased to 3.00 for both dried and fresh tigernut wine, while the initial titratable acidity of dried and fresh tigernut must were 0.0023 and 0.0024 (%) and increased to 0.016 and 0.021 (%) respectively. The sugar content of the must decreased from 17 and 14 (%) for dried and fresh tigernut to 5 (%) for both tigernut wine respectively, while the specific gravity of the tigernut musts were 1.070 and 1.060 for dried and fresh tigernut must and 0.705 for dried and fresh tigernut wine. Dried tigernut wine had alcohol content of 8.19 % (v/v), while fresh tigernut wine had a value of 6.41 % (v/v). The microbial count of dried tigernut must before fermentation were as follows, otal acterial ount 6.61 Log₁₀CFU/ml and Total Yeast Count 8.34 Log₁₀CFU/ml,, while fresh tiger nut must before fermentation had Total Bacterial Count of 6.59 Log₁₀CFU/ml and Total Yeast Cells of 8.30 Log₁₀CFU/ml. At the end of fermentation period (7 days), total bacterial count was 1 Log₁₀CfU/ml; total yeast count was 9.99 Log₁₀CFU/ml for dried tiger nut, while fresh tiger nut had bacterial count of 1.3 Log₁₀CFU/ml and yeast count of 9.99 Log₁₀CFU/ml respectively. There was no significant (p>0.05) difference between the dried tiger nut wine and grape wine, but significant (p<0.05) difference existed between the fresh tigernut wine and the grape wine which was used as control.

fermentation, tigernut, zobo plant, wine, quality parameter