PENDUGAAN MASA SIMPAN TAHU DENGAN PENAMBAHAN ANTIOKSIDAN EKSTRAK KULIT PISANG

Abstrak

Indonesia is a tropical country that produces a lot of food crops, including soybeans. The high protein content and easy processing of soybeans make various variations of soybean food processed, tofu is one of the most popular. But unfortunately, tofu has a short shelf life. This condition encourages irresponsible people to use non-food preservatives as tofu preservatives in their marketing to extend shelf life of tofu. Therefore, inexpensive natural preservatives are needed in the process of making tofu. Banana peel extract which contains natural antioxidant compounds is expected to be able to extend the shelf life of the tofu and increase its selling value. This research is a continuation of previous research, namely soaking tofu in banana peel extract solution and making tofu with the addition of banana peel extract as an anti-oxidant. The stages in this research were: 1) making banana peel extract through the maceration method with alcohol compound solvents; 2) making tofu with the addition of banana peel extract with various concentrations of 2% and 4%; 3) making plain tofu (without the addition of banana peel extract) and soaking it in a solution of banana peel extract with a concentration variation of 2% and 4%; 4) a total plate count (ALT) microbiological test was performed. The ALT test results obtained showed that the higher the banana peel extract concentration, the lower the bacterial growth was. The best results were seen in the variation of "mixing" with methanol maceration solvent and 4% antioxidant concentration of banana peel extract obtained 2.9 × 102 colonies/gram on the fourth day of storage. if we extrapolate the bacterial growth curve and compare it with the maximum limit of microbial contamination in food, we will get an estimated shelf life of this tofu’s variation 75 days.