Production of functional fruit juice from water melon (Citrullus lanatus) by fermentation of lactic acid bacteria
Department of Science Laboratory Technology, The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Research Article
World Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 2023, 03(02), 021–026.
Article DOI: 10.53346/wjast.2023.3.2.0064
Publication history:
Received on 19 June 2023; revised on 02 August 2023; accepted on 05 August 2023
Abstract:
Fruit juice is an ideal medium in the production of a probiotic drink. Water melon (Citrullus lanatus) fruit is a suitable medium for the production of probiotic juice due to its nutritional content. Fermentation using lactic acid bacteria is one of the most conventional and recognized arts of food preservation. In this study microbiological and physicochemical changes during fermentation of water melon juice were investigated. Sensory evaluation of the fermented fruit juice was also carried out. The results showed that total bacterial, total fungal and coliform counts ranged between 0-7.2, 0.6-7.8 and 0-19.2 CFU/ml respectively. Staphylococusaureus was not detected in any of the sample. The pH ranges obtained for the various samples are 4.32-5.13, 4.36-5.11, 4.31-5.14 and 4.55-5.14. The titratable acidity (TTA) ranged between 0.22-0.29, 0.16-0.26, 0.20-0.31 and 0.10-0.11. The following ranges were obtained for the proximate analysis: moisture (94.19-95.93), ash (0.87-0.95), crude fibre (0.00-0.00), crude protein (1.33-1.82), fat (0.02-0.03) and carbohydrate (1.70-4.63). The organoleptic properties are appearance (4.4-4.8), sweetness (4.2-4.7), texture (4.2-4.6), colour (4.1-5.0), odour (4.3-4.5) and overall acceptability (4.2-4.72).
It could be concluded from this study that samples of water melon juice fermented with Lactobacillus fermentum and L. plantarum had the lowest microbial load compared to the control. These samples also had the highest protein contents and received the highest scores in term of overall acceptability.
Keywords:
Lactobacillussp; Water melon; Functional beverage; Nutritional property; Antimicrobial activity
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