Development of wine from pectinase treated palmyrah fruit pulp by using toddy yeast

Abstract

Borassus flabellifer L (Palmyrah palm) is widely distributed in North - East part of Sri Lanka. Among the palmyrah products palmyrah fruit pulp is rich in sugar, provitamin A, vitamin C and lycopene which could be used for the development of wine. Fermentation of fruit pulp was carried out by using yeast which was isolated from palmyrah toddy and selected based on the alcohol tolerance and cell mass in fruit pulp. Palmyrah fruit pulp contains 6.7% of pectin. To improve the clarification of wine, pectinase treatment was carried out at different concentration, temperature and incubation time and the selected optimum condition was 1%, 40 oC and an hour respectively. Fermentation medium were prepared by using optimized amount of brix (20o) and pH (4.5) with pectinase treated and untreated palmyrah fruit pulp. Then selected yeast strain (P7) was inoculated into the pasteurized pulp and allowed to ferment. Changes in alcohol content, total soluble solids, pH and titratable acidity were determined for 5 days. After 14 days, volatile acidity, total residue on evaporation and methanol content were determined. Pectinase treated wine gave the highest alcohol content (9.6 ± 0.06 v/v %) compared to untreated wine (6.8 ± 0.12 v/v %). According to the analysis of residue on evaporation, pectinase treated (3.94 ± 0.115g/100ml) wine gave fewer residues on compared to untreated wine (9.29 ± 0.035g/100ml). Pectinase treated wine is free of methanol but the untreated wine contains methanol. The pectinase treated wine was selected as the best based on high alcohol content, absence of methanol, less residue on evaporation. Therefore this study revealed that best wine could be produced by using pectinase treated palmyrah fruit pulp with optimum fermentation condition.