Clarification of sugarcane juice for syrup production

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study the process of sugarcane syrup production for the community. The clarification process was required to reduce particles in sugarcane juice before heating to produce syrup. In this work, we analyzed the turbidity, color, pH and sensory evaluation to determine the clarification effect due to three clarifying agents: lime, bentonite and activated carbon. The study of clarification by liming showed that adding lime to pH 7 reduced the turbidity more effective than those to pH 8 and 9, and the study of adding bentonite at 3% (w/w) resulted in turbidity that was not significantly different (p>0.05) from those adding at 4 and 5% (w/w). Further clarification by powder activated carbon at 0.1 0.2 and 0.3 % (w/w) after liming to pH 7 and 3% bentonite indicated that the increase in activated carbon content led to the decrease in turbidity and color. After the clarification, the juices were heated directly to obtain syrup of 68°Brix total solid content. The syrup from juice treated with 3% bentonite and 0.3% activated carbon gave the lowest absorbance value at 420 nm corresponding to the lightest color with 52.4% sucrose. Sensory evaluation revealed the color likeness of syrups from juices clarified by 4 different treatments was in the range of 4.78-5.84 from the scale of 7. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.