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Effects of Sorghum Type and Milling Process on the Sensory Characteristics of Sorghum Porridge

¹University of Pretoria, Department of Food Science, Pretoria 0002, South Africa. ²National Food Technology Research Centre, Private Bag 008, Kanye, Botswana. ³Cereal Quality Laboratory, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2474. ⁴Corresponding author. Phone: +27 12 4204296. Fax: +27 12 4202839. E-mail: jtaylor@postino.up.ac.za

Improvement in the technology of sorghum grain milling for food use requires an in-depth understanding of how grain type and milling process affect the sensory characteristics of the food product. In Africa and parts of India, the product is generally porridge. Porridges prepared from meals produced by milling 12 sorghum types using hand-pounding, roller milling, and abrasive decortication followed by hammer milling were subjected to descriptive sensory analysis and data were analyzed by principal component analysis. Milling process had more effect than sorghum type on porridge sensory characteristics. Porridges from roller-milled sorghum were generally darker, had more specks, were more astringent, and had enhanced branny aroma. Porridges from hand-pounded meals were more stiff and coarse but had rancid off-flavor and humus odor. Porridges obtained with abrasive decortication and hammer milling were lighter in color, had enhanced cereal aroma, and were moderately more intense in most other attributes. Sorghums with pigmented pericarps and soft endosperms generally produced dark, specky, and astringent porridges with branny aroma, while light-colored hard grains produced light-colored porridges with enhanced cereal flavor and aroma. For high-quality sorghum porridge, abrasive decortication and hammer milling were the best milling processes in addition to using light-colored hard grain.