Research Journal of Food Science and Nutrition

In some parts of the world, tiger nut (Cyperus esculentus) tubers are widely used as a healthy food for both human and animals due to nutritional, functional and medicinal properties of the crop. This study is designed to evaluate quality attributes and acceptability of fermented tiger nut drinks fortified with defatted coconut milk and date syrup. Milk was extracted from the sprouted tiger nut tubers, mixed with defatted coconut milk in ratio of 90:10, 80:20 and 70:30 respectively and date syrup was added to taste. Each sample was allowed to ferment for 24, 48 and 72 hours with the addition of 1 g of yeast (Sacharomyces cerevisiae). Sprouted and unfermented tiger nut milk without coconut milk and date syrup was taken to be control experiment. The results of physic-chemical properties of the drinks showed that temperature (23.7 – 30.5°C), pH (2.54 – 3.20), Brix (3 – 5°), specific gravity (0.86 – 1.05 g/cm³), alcohol content (0.53 – 7.61%), iodine value (0.11 – 0.67), saponification value (20.89 – 68.86) and viscosity (780 mPa.S -1560 mPa.S). There was no microbial growth in all the samples for six months except A⁴⁸ sample that had 1.00 cfu/g in week 4, 3.90 cfu/g in week 5 and 10.50 cfu/g in week 6. At p≥0.05 significant level, there was no significant difference in all the sensory attributes of most samples. Fermented tiger nut provides alternative drink with relatively low alcohol content compared to bottled wines in the market.