Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Honey spirit is an alcoholic beverage produced by fermentation followed by distillation of the honey must, which
has distinct organoleptic characteristics derived mostly from the raw material used. In order to accurately
monitor the quality of the product throughout the distillation process (head, heart and tail stages), FT-RAMAN
spectroscopy was applied. Dark honey, light honey and honey obtained following waxes' wash was used to
produce honey spirit. The pH, alcoholic strength, methanol content, acetaldehyde content, ethyl acetate content
and higher alcohols content were evaluated during the distillation process. The FT-RAMAN technique was used
to obtain spectral information for all fractions collected during beverage production. The results suggest that the
honey spirit had good quality concerning the volatile composition and methanol was not detected in any sample.
FT-RAMAN is promising for the online monitoring of the distillation process in order to improve the final quality
of this beverage.
Description
Keywords
Distillation process Honey spirit Online monitoring RAMAN
Citation
Anjos, Ofélia; Santos, Regina; Estevinho, Letícia M.; Caldeira, Ilda (2020). FT-RAMAN methodology for the monitoring of honeys' spirit distillation process. Food Chemistry. ISSN 0308-8146. 305, p. 1-7