Production and Characterisation of a Novel Dasheen (Colocasia esculenta) Alcoholic Fermented Beverage

In this study, an alcoholic fermented beverage of acceptable quality characteristics was produced from two types of dasheen (Colocasia esculenta L. Schott) musts, A – boiled dasheen must and B – cooked dasheen with must, each at three total soluble solids (TSS) levels (18, 22 and 25 °Brix). Quality characteristics of pH, TSS, alcohol content, titratable acidity (TA), specific gravity (SG), and spectrophotometric, microbiological, and sensory evaluations were analysed in the fermented beverages. Fermentation caused pH, SG and TSS to decrease while simultaneously increased TA. Coliforms were not detected in any of the must and fermented beverage samples. The one-way ANOVA showed a significant difference (p<0.05) when the fermented beverage from musts A and B was compared on the final quality parameters of pH, SG, TSS, TA, a* component and sensory attributes (appearance, colour, taste, and mouthfeel). The beverage made from batch A, 25 °Brix was consumer acceptable based on sensory and physicochemical analyses with a pH of 3.12, SG of 1.0053, TSS of 10.13 °Brix, TA (% citric acid) of 0.75% and an alcohol content of 14.00 and 12.52% using the hydrometer and gas chromatography methods respectively. For the spectrophotometric analysis, the absorbance at 420 nm wavelength was 0.246 while the L* a* b* colour indices were 88.59, 0.13, and 1.36 respectively. The overall results indicate that this product can be beneficial to the Caribbean food and beverage industries. Keywords: Dasheen (Colocasia esculenta), alcoholic fermentation, sensory attributes, colorimetry, spectrophotometry, gas chromatography-flame ionisation detector