FT-RAMAN methodology for the monitoring of honeys' spirit distillation process

Ofélia Anjos,Regina Santos,Letícia M Estevinho,Ilda Caldeira

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.125511

Abstract

Honey spirit is an alcoholic beverage produced by fermentation followed by distillation of the honey must, which has distinct organoleptic characteristics derived mostly from the raw material used. In order to accurately monitor the quality of the product throughout the distillation process (head, heart and tail stages), FT-RAMAN spectroscopy was applied. Dark honey, light honey and honey obtained following waxes' wash was used to produce honey spirit. The pH, alcoholic strength, methanol content, acetaldehyde content, ethyl acetate content and higher alcohols content were evaluated during the distillation process. The FT-RAMAN technique was used to obtain spectral information for all fractions collected during beverage production. The results suggest that the honey spirit had good quality concerning the volatile composition and methanol was not detected in any sample. FT-RAMAN is promising for the online monitoring of the distillation process in order to improve the final quality of this beverage.

Highlights

Honey is a rich food containing a high amount of carbohydrates (60–82%) (Anjos, Campos, Ruiz, & Antunes, 2015; de la Fuente, RuizMatute, Valencia-Barrera, Sanz, & Martínez Castro, 2011) mainly fructose and glucose, and other minor compounds
The information available in the literature regarding honey spirit is scarce (Anjos et al, 2017; Roldán, van Muiswinkel, Lasanta, Palacios, & Caro, 2011); the hereby reported results were compared with those obtained throughout the distillation processes of other food products and beverages
The alcohol strength of this kind of beverages decrease during the distillation progress, as expected, and varied depending on the raw material used (92% of the total variation, Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Honey is a rich food containing a high amount of carbohydrates (60–82%) (Anjos, Campos, Ruiz, & Antunes, 2015; de la Fuente, RuizMatute, Valencia-Barrera, Sanz, & Martínez Castro, 2011) mainly fructose and glucose, and other minor compounds (proteins, enzymes free amino acids, essential minerals, vitamins and polyphenols) (da Silva, Gauche, Gonzaga, Costa, & Fett, 2016). The chemical composition and flavour of this natural product depends on its floral origin (Ceballos, Pino, Quijano-Celis, & Dago, 2010; Cuevas-Glory, Pino, Santiago, & Sauri-Duch, 2007). Little information is available in the literature regarding the characterization of honey spirit (Anjos, Frazão, & Caldeira, 2017; Pino & Fajardo, 2011). Pino and Fajardo (2011) performed an important study about the identification of volatile flavour compounds of spirits from unifloral honeys. In this study the authors identified that the most abundant classes of honey spirit volatile compounds were saturated alcohols, ethyl esters of saturated fatty acids and terpenes, and the author identified some chemical markers for honey spirit produced with honey from different floral origin

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Conclusion