Phenomenological Model Development of Percentage Protein Present in Fermented African Locust Beans Seed

Abstract

Abstract The optimum conditions for the fermentation of a local legume known as African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) into a vegetable protein based food condiment or spice (Iru) were developed using Levenberg-Marquardt (or Powell) method (using PSI software) with three (3) variables namely; inoculum concentration (bacillus subtilis), temperature and the fermentation duration. P. biglobosa seeds were fermented at various temperature of 40 - 70 °C for five days (120 hours) with different concentrations of Inoculum. The proximate analysis shows that fermentation increased the percentage protein. Protein had the highest composition with about 51 % after 72 hours at the lowest fermentation temperature of 40°C.