Evaluation of Dealcoholized Beverage from Pineapple Wine and Sorghum Beer

Aim: The recent increase in demand of non-alcoholic beverages (alcohol-free beer and wine) due to health reasons, religious doctrines, tribal influence and personal perception in the past few years, has triggered research interest in alcohol removal and separation processes. This study is aimed at producing and evaluating alcohol-free beer and wine using a simple distillation technique.

Study Design: This study was made to fit into using a combination of T-test and one way Analysis of Variance.

Place and duration of Study: The research was carried out at Department of Food Science and Technology laboratory, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria, between February 2018 and November 2018.

Methodology: The physicochemical properties of pineapple juice and sorghum wort as well as pineapple wine and sorghum beer were evaluated and the parameters measured were pH, brix, total titratable acidity, total soluble solids, specific gravity, ethanol content, esters and higher alcohols.

Results: Wine from pineapple juice and beer from sorghum wort were dealcoholized using distillation technique to obtain a dealcoholized wine and dealcoholized beer respectively. The dealcoholized products were also evaluated for pH, brix, total titratable acidity, total soluble solids, specific gravity, ethanol content, esters and higher alcohols using recommended methods. Results showed that significant difference (p<0.05) exists between dealcoholized products and their corresponding wine and beer for pH, brix, titratable acidity and specific gravity.

Conclusion: The dealcoholization process performed using simple distillation technique caused complete removal of ethanol from pineapple wine and sorghum beer. Higher alcohols and esters which contributes significantly to the sensory quality in alcoholic beverages were also completely lost because of the distillation operation. Hence, flavour enrichment may be required to produce a pleasurable and delicious alcohol-free product.