Improving the quality of sorghum injera by decortication and compositing with tef

Injera is an Ethiopian fermented pancake-like bread made from cereals, with tef being preferred. Decortication and compositing with tef were evaluated as methods to improve the injera-making quality of red tannin-free and tannin-containing sorghums. Both decortication and compositing improved sorghum injera quality. Concerning decortication, mechanical abrasion was found to be more effective than hand pounding because acceptable injera was obtained with lower milling loss. Good quality injera was produced at an extraction rate of 540 g kg(-1) for tannin-containing and 830 g kg(-1) for tannin-free sorghum. With compositing, good quality injera was produced with a 50:50 (w/w) composite of whole tannin-containing sorghum and tef. Both processes reduced the tannin content of the flours, which appeared to relieve the inhibiting effects of tannins on the fermentation. Decortication also seemed to improve sorghum flour injera-making quality by improving flour pasting as a result of reducing the level of interfering substances such as lipids and proteins. In contrast, the improvement brought about by compositing with tef seemed to be due to inherent differences between tef and sorghum starch granules and an increase in the water solubility index of the flour. Compositing seems to be a more useful method of improving sorghum injera quality than decorticating as it avoids the grain loss associated with decortication. (c) 2005 Society of Chemical Industry.