Modifikasi Parameter Produksi untuk Meningkatkan Mutu Kimia Gula Kelapa Cetak di Kabupaten Indragiri Hilir, Provinsi Riau

Abstract

Coconut sugar in Indragiri Hilir Regency is a potential product to be developed, but the quality of the sugar is not compliant with SNI-01-3743 of 1995 which may be caused by improper parameter in its production. The parameter of coconut sugar production should be modified for improvement. One indicator of the quality of coconut sugar determined by its chemical characteristics which include water content, ash content, sucrose content, and reducing sugar. The experimental design uses the Taguchi method with four factors, i.e. the composition of sap preservatives, defoaming agent, duration of sap tapping, and final temperature of sap cooking. The best/optimum results were obtained on the combination of mangosteen peel and sodium metabisulfite as sap preservatives, coconut milk as defoaming agent, 8 hours of sap tapping duration in the morning + 16 hours, and final sap cooking temperature of 135degreesC. The results of confirmation test of chemical quality characteristics (in confidence intervals) were water content of 6.87+/-0.57%, ash content of 1.96+/-0.13%, sucrose content of 77.77+/-5.19%, reducing sugar of 8.09+/-4.28%. Modification of parameters can improve the chemical quality of water content of 4.46%, the ash content of 43.84%, sucrose content of 11.30% and reducing sugar content of 45.78% which is better than previous quality and compliant with SNI.