BREWING SCIENCE PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS

An herb is a plant that is valued for flavor, scent, medicinal or other qualities other than its food value (John, 2000). They are used in cooking, as medicines, and for spiritual purposes. Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary and medicinal usage. General usage differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs (John, 2000). Herbs are “generally recognized as safe” by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), at least at concentrations commonly found in foods (Kaefer et al, 2008). Medicinal plants continue to provide valuable therapeutic agents, both in modern medicine and in traditional system (Reaven, 1983). The leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (cambium), berries and sometimes the pericarp or other portions of the plant might be considered in medicinal or spiritual use (John, 2000). In the medicinal uses, herbs (plants) contain phytochemicals that have effects on the body (John, 2000).

Seven-Up Bottling Company Nig. Plc was incorporated as a private limited liability company on the 25th day of June, 1959 the company was until 1979 wholly owned by the El-khail family. It was converted to a public limited liability company on the 27th of December, 1978 and listed on the main board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1985. The El-Khail was franchise for Nigeria by Seven-Up International Plc, under which it is entitled to bottle and market Seven-Up (7-up), the world's leading lime and lemon soft drink. In its attempts to widen its product range, the company obtained franchise for Nigeria in 1966 from crush international (USA) Inc; under which it is entitled to bottle and market all "crush" flavor predominantly "orange crush". The franchise was however sold to Nigerian Breweries PIc in 1995.

Many of the developing countries including African countries like Nigeria practice traditional medicine as its main source of health care. This traditional medicine is normally gotten from plant origin [Rehan Ahmad et al, 2008, Stephen bent, 2008].Today nearly 88 percent of the global populations switch to plant derived medicines as their first line of defence for maintaining health and combating diseases [Kintzois et al,2006]. Presently there are about 60 types of medicinal plants that have been recognised in primary health care and are classified according to their pharmacological actions such as peptic ulcers, anti flatulence, laxative, anti diarrhoea and anti hepatic[Viomolos et al,2003]. However in future the discovery of novel therapeutic agents will be only dependent on plant origin [Perulmalsamy et al, 1999].

The university should be the citadel of learning and more so the learning of all disciplines with brewing science and technology no left out. Brewing science and technology simply defined is the science of Brewing of beer by steeping a starch source commonly known as cereal grains in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, at home by a home brewer, or by a variety of traditional methods.

Locally brewed beer (sorghum beer) is an indigenous alcohol average. It is produced mainly from sorghum grain (Sorghum vulgare ) and the process of brewing involves malting, mashing, souring, fermentation and packaging. Locally brewed beer without hops has a short shelf-life. The aqueous extract of a tropical plant, bitter-leaf was used as the hop .Two type of drink were produced, one with hops and another without hops. Chemical analyses were carried out on both drinks, which gave a significant (p?0.05) difference. Sorghum beer with hops has a total acidity of 0.562±0.03, fixed acidity of 0.203±0.001, Volatile acidity 0.360±0.02, PH 3.93, specific gravity 1.042±0.003, total dissolved solids 1.12×105ppm, total suspended solids 1.65×105ppm, ethanol content of 3.43±0.03 respectively. While sorghum beer without hops has a total acidity of 0.652 ±0.002, fixed acidity of 0.176±0.002, volatile acidity of 0.476±0.03, PH of 3.50 specific gravity of 1.021±0.003, total dissolved solid of 1.15×105ppm, total suspended solids of 1.5×105ppm and an ethanol content of 3.65±0.02.

Sorghum beer is an indigenous African alcoholic beverage that has been longtraditionally brewed in the Savannah region of Nigeria; over the years there has been a problem with the Keep ability of these beers. Contemporally, a conceptual approachof hopping these beers with an indigenous hop extracts; Utazi (Gongronemalatifolium) has relatively improved its chemical properties compared to the Unhopped beer. This has been proven from the following; appreciable decrease in its ethanolcontent, total acidity, volatile acidity, Aspergilus prevalence from the forth day of its bench storage relative to the Unhopped beer which manifested in the second day. Thisclearly shows that the hopped sorghum beer with Utazi has a decreased rate ofdeterioration compared to the conventional Unhopped counterpart.