Top tips on how to increase the shelf life of zobo drink

A common problem with various types of beverages is their short shelf life. It would be much easier to make a lot of Zobo drink and just enjoy it for several days, but without proper preservation, it will spoil in a couple of days. So how do you make preserve Zobo drink? Continue reading to find out!

Zobo drink preservation

You already know that Zobo drink is an excellent, tasty beverage choice and can be taken daily. And yet a common problem that people have with it is that if you make a larger quantity of it, the drink will spoil within a week. The Zobo drink can go from a healthy beverage to a potential health hazard in a matter of days. This is an even greater problem if you’re trying to start a business of selling Zobo drinks, but don’t know how to preserve them.

Finding a secure method of preserving Zobo drink is a real challenge. The most shared and logical advice is to keep it in the freezer. That’s right, not just in the refrigerator, but in the coldest part of it. Store it there up to the point when you want to drink it, or when someone wants to buy it. Cold temperatures are a natural preserver, hence why fridges have been invented in the first place. They significantly slow down the creation of harmful bacteria and increases the shelf life of products.

Even though keeping the Zobo drink in the freezer is very efficient, you have to consider the electricity situation in Nigeria. Nigerians suffer from frequent, unplanned power outages. In addition, only about half the population of the country is connected to the national grid. Thus, relying on refrigeration is a risky venture, to say the least. And for business owners, this can mean heavy monetary losses and production problems.

Another way of preserving the Zobo drink is to boil it beforehand. To pasteurize the beverage, you need to keep it in sterile water heated for up to 100 degrees Celsius for a couple of minutes. The heating effect will increase the shelf life by a significant amount. But this solution has a major flaw as it neutralizes the majority of nutritional elements of the beverage. And if that is the result, you have to ask yourself – Is such a drink even worth preserving then?

Zobo drink is an example of a beverage that is largely defenseless against fermentation. If we’re talking about long-period shelve storage, the use of preservatives is a must. They help to prevent the development of harmful micro-organisms. As a result, the chemicals maintain the freshness of the drink during storage and uphold the quality and taste level.

Numerous natural preservative spices can help you increase the shelf life of your beverage. If you add food such as garlic or ginger to your recipe, it will preserve the Zobo drink. If you want to prolong the life cycle of the beverage even further, we recommend adding nutmeg, clove, cinnamon or lime. In moderate quantities, they will substantially reduce the amount of spoilage microbes that spawn in the drink. To simplify the task of choosing a natural preservative, we’ve prepared a list of the most effective products (the closer to the top of the list – the more efficient the method):

Lime
Garlic and ginger mixture
Ginger
Garlic
Clove
Kola nut
Cinnamon
Nutmeg

Chemical Zobo drink preservation

The first chemical preservative we recommend is the commonly-sold solution of 0.1% sodium benzoate. You can obtain it by mixing one pound of the solution in a single gallon of water. Now add an ounce of the received mixture per gallon of the Zobo drink, and you’ll have the advised concentration for a carbon-free drink (which is Zobo).

There are also other types of solutions you can try. For example, there’s the 15 mg magnesium sulfate with 10 ml of citric acid distributed to about five liters of drink. The potential drawback here may be the change in taste of the Zobo drink. If it’s noticeable, you can try to negate this effect by adding some fruit juice.

Both of these solutions, paired with the pasteurization (boiling) will increase the shelf life of Zobo drink up to forty days. But as we stated before, the nutritional value of the drink suffers greatly. For example, the amount of Vitamin C contained in the beverage is reduced in half.

Forty days is sure to be enough for any home needs. But what if you’re running a Zobo drink business and you need an even longer preservation period? We have an answer for you, but it will require an additional investment on your part. If you do have the necessary funds, you need to allocate them to packaging. Thus, vacuum, aseptic packages, and nitrogen packets can preserve Zobo drink up to four months!

In conclusion, let’s reiterate that the best chemical method of preserving Zobo drink is the sodium benzoate solution. If we’re talking about short time storage, we recommend using natural spices and keeping the beverage in a refrigerated area.

Now you know how to ensure that your Zobo drink has a long shelf life and are informed of all the available tools for this mission.