Production and Characterization of a New Sweet Sorghum Distilled Beverage

Abstract

Sweet sorghum is a culture that has received increasing attention in the last years. In many countries, genetic breeding programs have been developed seeking increases in the production of juice and sugars for alcoholic fermentation. In our study, S. cerevisiae and M. caribbica were evaluated to produce a distilled beverage from sweet sorghum, which was chemically and sensorially characterized. Both inocula and genotype BRS 506 were selected to produce the sweet sorghum spirit due to their high sugar conversion, ethanol yield, efficiency and productivity. The produced novel sorghum spirit was chemically and sensorially characterized. Fifty-five volatile compounds were identified by GC–MS, most of them belonging to the groups of esters and higher alcohols, which are desirable due to their fruity aromatic descriptors in distilled beverages. The sweet sorghum spirit produced with S. cerevisiae presented more volatile acids (9431.86 µg/L), aldehydes (331.93 µg/L) and terpenes (4881 µg/L). In contrast, the spirit produced with mixed inoculum showed 58,021.27 µg/L of esters and 9717.07 µg/L of higher alcohols. The mixed inoculum improved the production of desirable volatile compounds, resulting in slightly greater acceptance in the sensorial analysis with a higher index of purchase intention. Based on our results, the sweet sorghum proved to be a good substrate for alcoholic fermentation to produce a spirit, which may represent an interesting alternative in the market of distilled beverages.