Influence of Harvest Season and Maturation of Different Sugarcane (Saccharum Spp.) Cultivars on the Chemical Composition of Alembic Brazilian Sugarcane Spirit

Abstract

Contrary to the ethanol industrial production, the quality and composition of sugar cane as raw material for the production of alembic cachaca have until now not been completely addressed. This work evaluated the influence of five different sugarcane cultivars and degree of maturation over the physicochemical composition of cachaca produced under strict controlled conditions. Three harvest seasons were used in order to obtain different stages of maturation. The sugarcane quality was assessed by the juice brix, sugarcane POL, reducing sugars, and purity. The cultivars quality did not differ within each harvest stage. However, significant quality differences were observed among sugarcane harvested in June and the other harvest months, particularly on reducing sugar content. This indicates different stages of sugarcane maturation. The 45 samples of cachaca produced from those sugarcanes were submitted to physicochemical and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) qualitative analysis. The GC/MS composition pattern showed that the type of cultivar did not alter the composition of the cachaca at the same harvest stage. Otherwise, the production of acetic acid, ethyl lactate and n- butyl alcohol was higher in the first harvest (June) when compared to the others. The results from sugar cane quality and GC/MS when submitted to principal component analysis (PCA) showed consistently the separation between the groups of cachaca produced in the three seasons, indicating the influence of sugarcane ripening over the cachaca composition.