Journal of Food Technology

Evaluation of Organic Acids and Sugars Contents During the Production of “Tchapalo”, a Traditional Sorghum Beer in Cote D�ivoire

Solange Aka , Fatoumata Camara , Yesse Zinzendorf Nanga , Yao Guillaume Loukou and Koffi Marcellin Dje

Abstract: The evaluation of organic acids contents during tchapalo production was investigated. Samples of mash of sorghum, cooked sediment, wort, sour wort, sweet wort and tchapalo were analysed by HPLC. Titratable acid, pH, soluble solids, reducing sugars and total sugars were also tested. The predominant organic acid detected always in the mash was propionic acid (2.07�3.51 g L ¹). Contents of soluble solids, reducing sugars and total sugars were 2.7�0.8%, 1.78�1.48 and 13.75�1.32 g L ¹, respectively. During spontaneous fermentation, lactic acid and sometimes acetic acid were the only organic acids produced causing the increase of titratable acidity of the sour wort. Reducing sugars consumed was compensated by that released after the hydrolysis of total sugars. Majority of organic acids and sugars were concentrated in the sweet wort by the cooking. Then lactic acid was again produced together with citric acid during alcoholic fermentation; contents of sugars decreased a lot. Therefore in tchapalo, lactic acid (14.56�3.58 g L ¹) was predominant followed by propionic (3.45�1.98 g L ¹), citric (1.96�0.75 g L ¹) and malic (1.73�1.17 g L ¹) acids and contents of soluble solids, reducing sugars and total sugars were 8.5�2.2%, 33.86�20.0 and 88.42�48.4 g L ¹, respectively.