Evaluation of sugar and free amino acid during fermentation of ogi from maize, acha and sorghum

This research investigated effect of fermentation time and cereal type on the total reducing sugar (TRS), total sugar (TSS), and total free amino acid (TFA) during the production of ogi. The result showed that TFA generally increased with increase in fermentation time (7.916 – 17.596 mg/g). Maize, acha and sorghum ogi had the lowest total reducing sugar (TRS) at 0 h (16.927glucose mg/g), 12 h (16.655 glucose mg/g) and 48 h (18.212 glucose mg/g) respectively and TSS was lowest in acha ogi from 12 h to 48 h (33.191 - 34.370 glucose mg/g). Principal component analysis and Agglomerative hierarchical clustering were used to evaluate the variability in sugar and amino acid contents and ranked the contributions of the variables. The factors were divided into four principal components with cumulative variance contribution rate of 87.47%. The result showed that acha and sorghum ogi had lower sugar content than maize ogi during fermentation. This research suggested that maize, acha and sorghum can be used in the production of cereal based ogi for weaning food at 48 h due to high free amino acid content, and also advanced the use of acha in production of ogi for diabetic patients due to its low total sugar content.