Production, Preservation and Shelf-Life Evaluation of Wine from Banana Fruit (Musa acuminata Colla)

Aims: The investigation focused on production, preservation and shelf-life study of wine from banana fruit (Musa acuminata).

Study Design: This work is based on completely randomized design with two replications and the average values calculated for mean comparison.

Place and Duration of Study: Food and Industrial Microbiology laboratory, Department of Microbiology, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, September, 2018 to March, 2019.

Methodology: Analyses performed using standard methods were microbiological, physicochemical and sensory evaluations. Sodium benzoate concentrations of 5 and 25 ppm were used for shelf life studies. Banana ‘must’ was analyzed at 4 day intervals for 12 days while produced wine was analyzed at 5 day intervals for 25 days during storage.

Results: Changes in total heterotrophic counts (THCs), total coliform counts (TCCs) and fungal counts (FCs) occurred during fermentation, resulting in maximum THCs of 5.02, TCCs of 3.60 and FCs of 8.87 log10 cfu ml-1 on days 4, 4 and 8 respectively. Acetobacter and Saccharomyces were pronounced in wine without preservative (control) throughout storage. Mean pH of ‘must’ was 5.8±0.30 while alcohol content was 0.28±0.03% on day 0 but as fermentation progressed, mean pH was reduced while mean alcohol content increased. Mean pH of wine preserved with 5 ppm varied slightly throughout storage but mean pH of control and 25 ppm preserved wine decreased from 3.7±0.20 on day 0 to 3.2±0.23 on day 25. Sensory attributes (overall acceptability) on day 12 was most preferred while during shelf-life studies, significant difference in overall acceptability of the different wines at P=.05 occurred. Wine preserved with 5 ppm had the best organoleptic quality but 25 ppm preserved wine showed the most acceptable microbial quality.

Conclusion: Findings show that banana is a good substrate for wine production and 5 ppm sodium benzoate retained the qualities of the wine.