ABSTRACT

The work studied the preservative potentials of lime juice on palm wine.  Palm wine was treated with graded quality of each juice separately to form ratios of 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 and 50:50 (palm wine/juice) and allowed to store for 5 days (120 hours) while analysis were conducted daily. Results obtained showed the presence of yeasts including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces uvarum, Candida spp and Schizosaccharomyces pombe while bacteria species included Bacillus spp, Micrococcus spp, Staphylococcus spp, Lactobacillus spp and Serratia spp. During storage sugar content of the control palm wine reduced from 11.47% to 1.12% after five days while the reduction ranges of the lime treated was 11.47% to 1.18%. The reduction dynamics makes organism lower in the treated wines than in the control until the third day. Alcohol content increased from 3.09% to 32.21% in the control while the lime treated recorded final alcohol content in the range of 27.32 to 27.48%.  The pH decreased in all the wines but was lower in the control which dropped from 6.56 to 3.56 while the lime and lemon treated (50:50) dropped to 4.00 and 3.60 respectively. The yeast load increased in the wines but was higher in the control from 3.57×105Cfu/ml to 6.67×107Cfu/ml on day three. The increase in lime treated wines (50:50) was from 3.67×105Cfu/ml to 3.57×107Cfu/ml. Results of sensory evaluation show acceptability of the wines up to the ones treated with 20% lime and 10% lemon separately. There were variations in the acceptability of the treated wines in terms of taste, aroma and mouth feel. It was observed that the citrus juice had but limited preservative potency on the wine during storage.