DESENVOLVIMENTO E CARACTERIZAÇÃO DE BEBIDAS FERMENTADAS ALCOÓLICAS DO FRUTO DA CASTANHOLEIRA (Terminalia catappa Linn) VARIEDADES BRANCA E ROXA.

Abstract

The chestnut tree (Terminalia catappa Linn.) is a plant of Malaysian origin that was brought by the Portuguese to Brazil. With little demand for water and high adaptability, the plant spread easily to the soils of Northeast Brazil. The fruit of the chestnut tree is fleshy, with fibrous pulp and may have yellow skin and white pulp, and there is also a variety with purple pulp and skin. The fruit is characterized by a notable amount of sugars and fibers, astringency and a high amount of phenolics. Despite the good nutritional quality, the fruit of the chestnut tree is not consumed by most of the population, being largely wasted. Among the various measures that need to be taken in order to combat waste, studying raw materials that have good nutritional quality and potential for technological use is an alternative that deserves to be highlighted since, in addition to the sustainable use of wasted raw material, its use can contribute to economic development by providing productive inclusion in a region. Thus, the objective of this study is to produce and characterize fermented alcoholic beverages based on the pulp of two varieties of castan nut (T. cattapa L.) fruit. The pulps and beverages produced will be characterized in terms of physical-chemical and microbiological parameters. The parameters evaluated for total and fixed acidity showed 126.67 meq L⁻¹ and 87.50 meq L⁻¹, pH 3 and alcohol content 5.2% v/v. for the white variety, the parameters evaluated for total and fixed acidity showed 72.82 meq L⁻¹, 43.48 meq L⁻¹, total chlorides 0.39 g/L, dry extract 17.65 g /L, total sugars 5.95 g/L, soluble solids 10.0 ºBrix, pH 3 and alcohol content 4.7% v/v, for the purple variety. The beverages showed good physical-chemical and microbiological characteristics, complying with most of the parameters required by current legislation for alcoholic fermented beverages.