36B-2 |
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G.-S. MARIANO, C.-M. Hugo, M.-A. Juan, B.-A. Enrique, J.-I. Hugo, R.-M. Ramiro, and N.-B. Jose Luis. Ingenieria Bioquimica, Instituto Tecnologico de Celaya, Av Tecnologico s/n, Celaya, 38010, Mexico The mezcal is an alcoholic drink produced, in small-scale plants, by distillation of musts fermented from cooked agave extracts. The mezcal is a liquid of unique color and flavor, unlike any other alcoholic drink obtained from agaves. The traditional process for mezcal production involves the following stages: cooking, pressing, fermentation and distillation. However, the way in which these production stages are handled varies greatly among the different producers, resulting in inefficiency, lack of standards, and thus uneven quality of the products. In this work, we studied a fermentation process for mezcal production; including the agave core cooking stage to obtain fermentable sugar (mainly glucose and fructose) as a result of thermal hydrolysis from inulin, principal complex carbohydrate present in agave which is a polymeric fructose with a terminal glucose residue. In addition, as part of our efforts, we isolated, partially identified and selected the endogenous microorganisms associate of spontaneous fermentation and responsible for some of the particular attributes of the mezcal. Defined the components of fermentation process, we studied the variables that allow increase the yield alcoholic fermentation. In all cases, we used statistical tools based on response surface methodology to optimize the overall fermentation process. The results show that during core cooking the inulinin is hydrolyzed, rendering extracts with 119.68 g/L of sugars after 10.35 h. at 111.68 ºC in an autoclave system. Substrate used in fermentation process inoculated with Saccharomyces sp as initial culture. The variable analysis of the fermentation process show that at 33 ºC, 97 min. of initial aeration time and 28.5 rpm allow us to obtain a fermented extract with 3 g/L of ethanol.
Session 36B, Biotechnology: General
2005 IFT Annual Meeting, July 15-20 - New Orleans, Louisiana |