Fruit Spirit Production from Coffee Cherries—Process Analysis and Sensory Evaluation

Einfalt, Daniel; Meissner, Klaus; Kurz, Lena; Intani, Kiatkamjon; Müller, Joachim

doi:10.3390/beverages6030057

“…The methanol content in the hearts fractions was 2600 ± 400 g/hL pa, which considerably exceeded the EU limit of 1000 g/hL pa and offers a safety margin of less than 2 for the level of acute toxicity of 5000 g/hL pa (see section 3). The authors suggested that the application of pectinase and the long storage had an adverse effect on the methanol concentration [15], which is plausible considering our review results in sections 4.1 and 4.2.…”

Section: Coffee Spirits -A Special Case For Methanol Mitigationsupporting

confidence: 59%

Methanol Mitigation During Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits With Special Consideration of Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits

Blumenthal¹,

Steger²,

Einfalt³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Methanol is a natural ingredient with major occurrence in fruit spirits, such as apple, pear, plum or cherry spirits, but also in spirits made from coffee pulp. The compound is formed during fermentation and the following mash storage by enzymatic hydrolysis of naturally present pectins. Methanol is toxic above certain threshold levels and legal limits have been set in most jurisdictions. Therefore, the methanol content needs to be mitigated and its level must be controlled. This article will review the several factors that influence the methanol content including the pH value of the mash, the addition of various yeast and enzyme preparations, fermentation temperature, mash storage, and most importantly the raw material quality and hygiene. From all these mitigation possibilities, lowering the pH value and the use of cultured yeasts when mashing fruit substances is already common as best practice today. Also a controlled yeast fermentation at acidic pH facilitates not only reduced methanol formation, but ultimately also leads to quality benefits of the distillate. Special care has to be observed in the case of spirits made from coffee by-products which are prone to spoilage with very high methanol contents reported in past studies.

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“…Typically, stone fruits of the genus Prunus (cherries, plums) and pome fruits of the genera Malus and Pyrus (apples, pears) are associated with the highest methanol levels. More recently, coffee cherries (genus Coffea ) were identified as fruits possibly leading to comparably high methanol levels in their spirits [ 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methanol Mitigation during Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits with Special Consideration of Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits

Blumenthal

¹

,

Steger²,

Einfalt

³

et al. 2021

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Methanol is a natural ingredient with major occurrence in fruit spirits, such as apple, pear, plum or cherry spirits, but also in spirits made from coffee pulp. The compound is formed during fermentation and the following mash storage by enzymatic hydrolysis of naturally present pectins. Methanol is toxic above certain threshold levels and legal limits have been set in most jurisdictions. Therefore, the methanol content needs to be mitigated and its level must be controlled. This article will review the several factors that influence the methanol content including the pH value of the mash, the addition of various yeast and enzyme preparations, fermentation temperature, mash storage, and most importantly the raw material quality and hygiene. From all these mitigation possibilities, lowering the pH value and the use of cultured yeasts when mashing fruit substances is already common as best practice today. Also a controlled yeast fermentation at acidic pH facilitates not only reduced methanol formation, but ultimately also leads to quality benefits of the distillate. Special care has to be observed in the case of spirits made from coffee by-products which are prone to spoilage with very high methanol contents reported in past studies.

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“…Isobutanol did not show significant differences between the three fractions. Methanol indicated a typical behavior for batch distillation processes with no significant difference between its concentration in heads, hearts and tails [1,5,23]. 2-propanol and acetone were only detected in small quantities in the present study.…”

Section: Volatiles Compositionmentioning

confidence: 44%

“…In regard to the different mash volumes, juice mashes (No. [1][2][3][4][5][6] were distilled with a 20 L column still (Jacob Carl, Eislingen, Germany) [1], while fruit mash (No. 7-13) distillations were performed with a 120 L column still (Carl GmbH, Eislingen, Germany).…”

Section: Distillationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is performed in order to separate fermentative volatiles with negative aroma attributes in heads and tails from the value product (hearts). Up to now, the decision about when to perform a fractionating cut was mainly made by sensory evaluation [1][2][3]. This is due to the fact that heads and tails contain characteristic fermentative volatiles with certain aroma attributes that can be perceived by distillate manufacturers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Absorbance Spectroscopy of Heads, Hearts and Tails Fractions in Fruit Spirits

Bohn¹,

Roj²,

Hoppert³

et al. 2021

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There is a large economic interest to characterize heads, hearts and tails fractions during fruit spirit distillation by simple, fast, low-volume and low-cost analytical methods. This study evaluated the potential of ultraviolet (UV)-visible-infrared spectroscopy (230–1000 nm) to characterize and differentiate these distillate fractions. Heads, hearts and tails fractions of 10 different fruit spirits were separated by sensory evaluation and investigated by absorbance spectroscopy. Principal component analysis indicated that UV spectroscopy at a wavelength range from 230 to 310 nm had the highest potential to differentiate all three distillate fractions. While all tails fractions showed significantly different UV spectra, a clear differentiation between heads and hearts fractions was limited. However, an additional UV spectroscopy of 100 mL subfractions sampled during the shift from heads to hearts in three additional distillations did reveal significant differences. The calculated integrals of the according best-fit trendline functions of the spectra indicated a trend towards reduced area-under-the-curve and zero-point values during the shift. This could be a new lead to implement an analytical method for in-line process control during fruit spirit production.

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Fruit Spirit Production from Coffee Cherries—Process Analysis and Sensory Evaluation

Cited by 13 publications

References 30 publications

Methanol Mitigation During Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits With Special Consideration of Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits

Methanol Mitigation During Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits With Special Consideration of Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits

Methanol Mitigation during Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits with Special Consideration of Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits

Absorbance Spectroscopy of Heads, Hearts and Tails Fractions in Fruit Spirits

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