Improving the saccharification of sorghum mash with supplementary enzymes from local crops

Abstract

Barley which is the main cereal for brewing beer is imported into most African countries by brewing companies; this comes at cost and also affects the cost of production. To address these problems and also to improve the income of African farmers, a lot of interest has been generated in the use of sorghum as substitute for barley. Brewing solely with sorghum comes with a lot of challenges due to the low level of a and amylases in the malt. To improve the saccharification, sorghum malt was augmented with 30% rice malt, sweet potato, soya beans and barley malt as enzyme sources. Dorado, the sorghum variety that was used was malted, dried and milled into grits. The milled sorghum malt was mixed with the various enzyme sources and then hot water extracted (mashed) using 100% barley as the control. The saccharification rate, extract (%), extract yield (%), limit attenuation (%) at 24 and 48 hours and pH of the worts was determined. The diastatic power ( ᵒWK) of sorghum malt, rice malt, barley malt, sweet potato and soya beans were also determined. Sorghum mash converted when augmented with 30% rice and barley malts and sweet potato while that of soya beans and 100% sorghum showed partial conversion. One way ANOVA of the diastatic power, extract and the limit attenuations showed a significant difference between the samples and the control at 95% confidence level. Sorghum mash will saccharify when augmented with 30% supplementary enzymes from barley malt, rice malt and sweet potato