Development and Characterization of a Carbonated Ginger Drink

There is widespread of effort in developing countries like Nigeria to develop carbonated drink from the locally source materials. To achieve this aim, ginger has been consider as an alternative material for the production of carbonated drink, this is because ginger and its by-products have a lot of applications in confectionaries, pharmaceuticals and beverages production. Apart from the applications of ginger listed above, ginger is also a very important and highly valuable crop in most part of West African, Japan, and China. In this study, ginger soft drink was developed by a combination of fresh ginger rhizome and Carbon dioxide (CO2). The CO2 gas volume was steadily increased to make three (3) samples B, C, and D, while sample A is the non-carbonated sample. All the samples were characterized according to chemical and microbiological analysis of the final product and values obtained from the analysis of the developed ginger soft drink are within the range of standard values for carbonated drink. Shelf-life analysis was carried out on the final product and it corresponds to the Shelf-life of a standard carbonated drink. Sample D with the highest gas volume of 2.8 cm3 has the best Shelf-life. Results obtained from the various analysis conducted indicates that the production of a carbonated ginger soft drink from fresh ginger rhizome is practically possible, cost effective and has numerous advantages when compared with other available carbonated drinks.