Enzyme assisted juice extraction from Dacryodes macrophylla as a potential bio-resource for wine production

Atom fruit (Dacryodes macrophylla) is a Non-timber Forest Product (NTFP) that comprises a large seed, thick pulp, and a thin hard outer covering. The structural component of its cell wall and thick pulp make it difficult in extracting the juice. Also, Dacryodes macrophylla fruit is greatly underutilized, therefore the need to process and transform it into other value-added products. This work aims to enzymatically extract juice from Dacryodes macrophylla fruit with the aid of pectinase, ferment and test the acceptability of wine produced from this extract. The enzyme and non-enzyme treatments were carried out under the same conditions and their physicochemical properties such as pH, juice yield, total soluble solids, and Vitamin C were compared. A central composite design was used for the optimization of the processing factors for the enzyme extraction process. Enzyme treatment had a great impact on the juice yield (%) and Total soluble solids (TSS) (0Brix) of samples as it was as high as 81 ± 0.7% and 10.6 ± 0.02 0Brix whereas, that of the non-enzyme treatments were 46 ± 0.7% and 9.5 ± 0.02 0Brix respectively. However, the Vitamin C content of enzyme-treated juice decreased to 11.32 ± 0.13 mg/ml as compared to that of the non-enzyme-treated juice sample (15.7 ± 0.04 mg/ml). The optimum processing condition in the extraction of juice from the atom fruit was 1.84% enzyme concentration, 49.02 ֯C Incubation temperature, and 43.58 min Incubation time. During wine processing within 14 days of primary fermentation, the pH of the must decreased from 3.42 ± 0.07 to 3.26 ± 0.07 whereas the Titratable acidity (TA) increased from 0.16 ± 0.05 to 0.51 ± 0.0. The wine produced from Dacryodes macrophylla fruit showed promising results as its sensorial scores for all attributes including color, clarity, flavor, mouthfeel, alcoholic burn after taste and overall acceptability were all above 5. Thus, enzymes can be used to improve the juice yield of Dacryodes macrophylla fruit and hence, can be a potential bioresource for wine production.