The effects of cassava variety, fertilizer type and dosage on physical and sensory characteristics of cassava-wheat composite bread

Substitution of wheat flour with high quality cassava flour (HQCF) in bread making is economically important in Nigeria as wheat is mainly imported. Different treatments are applied to cassava used for HQCF production and the effects of such a treatment on cassava-wheat bread quality is scarce in literature. This study was conducted to study the effects of cassava varieties (TME 419, TMS 30572), fertilizer type ((NPK 15-15-15, 20-10-10, 12-12-17) and dosage (150, 300 kg/ha) on physical and sensory characteristics of cassava-wheat composite bread according to General Linear Model (GLM) analysis. According to the results, the independent variables had varying effects on the composite bread quality. While the main effect of fertilizer type was significant for oven spring and crumb moisture content, the interactive effects of fertilizer type and dosage significantly influenced crumb texture and taste. In spite of the significant differences in certain physical and sensory attributes, the overall acceptability of bread samples did not differ significantly. HQCF from cassava variety TMS 30572 showed the best performance in making composite cassava-wheat bread in terms of physical and sensory properties

Effect of drying methods on the sorption isotherms of plantain flour

The demand for plantain flour has increased in recent years due to its health benefits and industrial applications, however, there is dearth of information on the effect of drying methods on the sorption isotherm of plantain flour. In the present study, moisture sorption properties for unripe plantain flour using four drying methods at temperatures 27 °C, 37 °C and 42 °C were determined for water activity 0.10 to 0.80. The data generated were modelled using Peleg, GAB, Oswin, BET and Langmuir. The results revealed that the Equilibrium Moisture Contents decreased with an increase in temperature at all the water activities considered. Also, moisture isotherms of the plantain flour were not significantly (p>0.05) affected by temperature. The coefficient of determination (R2) for the used models ranged from 0.640 and 0.986 and Peleg was the most appropriate for the adsorption isotherm of plantain flour out of all the models. The monolayer moisture content of the flour also showed that all the unripe plantain flours could be stored for longer periods at all the temperatures studied, as their Mo falls within acceptable range for storage