Effect of different concentrations of bush passion fruit pulp and temperature in the production of beer

Among many species of passion fruit, the bush passion fruit (Passiflora cincinnata Mast.) is a wild, edible fruit, of exotic flavor and has good acceptability for consumption. This study aimed to determine the physico-chemical characteristics of the bush passion fruit pulp, and to produce and characterize physico- chemically the ale beer made with bush passion fruit as a malt adjunct, using different percentages (10, 29, 39 and 49%) of this adjunct and temperatures (15 and 22°C) to evaluate its fermentative potential for production of beer and to verify the influence of the soluble solids content and the specific gravity decrease during the fermentation. The results indicated that the bush passion fruit is suitable to carry out the fermentative process and the bench test media containing 29% of malt adjunct obtained best results in fermentation at both 15 and 22°C, with alcohol yields of 7.61 and 8.29%(v/v), respectively.   Key words: Beer, adjunct, bush passion fruit, fermentative potential.