Utilization of enzymes in the production of liquid sugar from dates

Abstract

Date palm fruits Phoenix dactylifera cultivated in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were used for the production of high quality date syrup. This syrup is suitable for the manufacture of different food products. Date syrup was prepared from Reziz date (Soft variety) at different ratios of water/date (2:1, 2.5:1 and 3:1). Pectinase and cellulase were used to obtain the maximum date syrup extraction. Data revealed that Reziz variety contained high total sugar content (about 83.51% on dry basis). The extraction rate of sugars increased as the water/flesh ratio increased. Also, the use of pectinase/cellulase gave the highest recovery of total soluble solids (65.6 to 70.7%) compared with control (50.5 to 56.30%). The resultant date syrups were evaluated for their physico-chemical characteristics and compared with cane syrup (Black honey). Results of the organoleptic evaluation proved that date syrup is considered to be highly desirable than cane syrup. Results indicate the possibility of employing pectinase/cellulase to produce concentrated date syrup from tamr fruits for use in food product development.     Key words: Date fruits, Reziz, date syrup, pectinase, cellulose, physico-chemical characteristics.