[accepting any contribution]
Hi HDs I'm new here and want to contribute. I've seen there's a lot of posts about rum in general, but not so much about rhum agricole nor cachaça. I'm brazilian and started distilling early this year, sugar washes and cachaça runs, so I wanna share with you some knowledge about sugar cane juice fermentation.
Cachaça vs. Rhum Agricole
I believe everyone already knows, but I'll reinforce: It's basically the same, but cachaça needs to be made in Brasil, It's a terroir matter.
Brazilians in general don't even drink rum (in the markets we can find only Montilla and Bacardí) and just a few know that's also a sugar cane product (Yeah!).
Cachaça is recognized by México (since 2018) and USA (since 2012) as a brazilian product, just like Tequila is Mexican and Bourbon and Tennessee Whisky are from USA
History
During 1500's Brasil was a major sugar producer, and in it's process we always get some fermentables that are not desireable in table sugar. After pressing the cane to extract the juice it was transferred to large copper bowls to boil for removing water. During this process foam is formed, and has to be removed, this foam was then called "cachaza" (spanish word cuz' between 1580 and 1640, Portugal and Spain were united). This foam was used to feed animals and slaves. Soon they realized this foam wine could be distilled, the first still probably was taken from a ship wich was used to remove salt from sea water.
https://i0.wp.com/www.mapadacachaca.com ... C320&ssl=1
Oldest remains from Portuguese sugar factories in Brasil
At the end of XVII century, Holand was kicked out from Brasil NE region, so they went to central america where started producing a better quality sugar, breaking Brasil's economy wich forced sugar producers to make more cachaça to avoid losses.
It's popularity was so strong that it started to be used as money, you could buy lands, food, animals or slaves by trading cachaça. It was also part of slaves rations for a while.
Cachaça got very popular among brazilians, so Portugal criminalized it to protect their own spirit, bagaceira (portuguese grappa).
This is a beverage directly linked to lower classes, only in the last century it started to be appreciated by upper class, and in the begin of XXI century it starts getting other countries recognition as a brazilian product
Sugar Cane
Cachaça can be made out of any sugar cane variety, in the past the most popular one was "cana caiana" wich is very flavourfull but suffer with infections easily, so nowadays there's a bigger variety to choose from.
In most of brazilian territory happens a wet and a dry season, the sugar cane is harvested between may and october, the dry season, when the rainy season begins the juice and flavors gets dilluted and the soil gets messy, time to stop.
The plantation can't be put on fire before harvesting (was comon because burns only the leaves) to avoid carcinogenic substances in the spirit due to the smoke.
Juicing and Preparing to Fermentation
This is a product direct related with the harvest so you need a fast fermentation to keep everything working as fast as possible.
First, the sugar cane is cleaned only with water, just to remove dust. Leaves are fully removed also. But all the yeast and bacterya in the cane outside must remain, it will accelerate the fermentation and provide a lot of flavors. But you cannot afford getting all your wash getting to funky, that's why the juice needs to be diluted to around 15Brix (15%m/m = 1.060 OG). This, allied with high fermentation temperatures (around 30ºC) allows fermentation finishing within 24h (yeast decantation included).
Some distilleries uses a higher or lower OG (than 1.060), depending on the yest, speed, flavors desired, etc. It's not wrong to put a wash with higher OG and take longer to ferment. It's a matter of taste.
The leftovers of the cane can be washed with hot water and pressed again to extract more sugars depending on what kind of juicer you have and its efficiency
Yeast
Cachaça has a specific taste, and there's is two options to go for: lab yeast or full wild yeast fermentation
-Lab yeast:
If you choose for a lab yeast just go for it and be happy, it's the easiest way so use it as package recomendations, but never kill the wild yeast on the skin, they are our allies
-Wild yeast aka Fermento Caipira:
For this, you need to start small, you'll fill your fermenter with 10% of it's capacity with dilluted cane juice mixed with enough raw cornmeal and/or rice flour (around 0.1kg/3L of juice). keep feeding it daily and and increasing the OG, before you feed with 15Brix, rack the wash and keep the bottom (you can distill this wash, but it can be to harsh to be a cachaça). Use the yeast mass left on the fermenter to start a full batch with 15Brix, this ferment is often used around 5 times, after 5th generation it starts souring, wich will take longer to improve during ageing.
Fermentations should finish fast and under 1.000 OG.
Distillation
Anything here is allowed, copper, stainless steel, ceramic, any design.
But copper is a mandatory due to sulfur compounds, at least the condenser should be copper.
It's traditionally single distilled in pot stills, no striping runs, only spirit run (if your pot still is able to go from around 7% until at least 54 ABV). But it gives you a rough product, if you choose to redistill or use a reflux or plate still you'll get a cleaner beverage, with less contaminants.
Also generally in a pot still all that comes out above 94ºC is tails
The distilate should have more than 54 ABV and less than 70 ABV (the whole distilate, it's not cut points)
Congeners
For those chemists just like me:
It's used a congeners coeficcient to determine the quality of the cachaça. This coefficient is the sum of volatile acidity (acetic acid), aldehydes (acetaldehyde), total esters (etyl acetate), superior alcohols (sum of n-propyl, isobutyl and isoamyl alcohols), and furfural+hidroxifurfural and it can't be lower than 200mg/100mL or higher than 650mg/100ml of anhydrous etanol
Congeners | max(mg/100mL of anhydrous etanol) |
volatile acidity | 150 |
aldehydes | 200 |
total esters | 30 |
superior alcohols | 5 |
furfural+hidroxifurfural | 360 |
Contaminants
Organic Contaminants:
Contaminant | amount permited |
Metanol | under 20mg/100mL of anhydrous etanol |
Etyl carbamate | under 150µg/L of final product |
Acrolein (2-propenal) | 5mg/100ml of anhydrous etanol |
2-butanol | 10mg/100ml of anhydrous etanol |
1-butanol | 3mg/100ml of anhydrous etanol |
Inorganic Contaminants:
Contaminant | amount permited |
Copper (Cu) | under 5mg/L of final productl |
Lead (Pb) | under 200µg/L of final product |
Arsenic (As) | under 100µg/L of final productl |
Brazilian law on sugar cane spirits
- Cachaça is a distilate from sugar cane juice and is between 38 and 48 ABV, only made in Brasil, and has peculiar flavors (amount and kind of congeners). You can add until 6g/L of sugar, if you put more than this, it's just labeled as sweetened cachaça, the maximum sugar amount is 30g/L.
- Rum is a distilate from molasses or a mix of molasses and sugar cane juice, with an ABV between 35 and 54%. Also, to be called Rum here, it demands to be aged in oak barrels or similar.
- Aguardente de Cana is anything made out of cane, again 38 until 54 ABV, but does not have a cachaça flavor, it could be a vodka for instance.
-Rapadura (panela)/Melado (condensed sugar cane juice)/Melaço (Molasses) spirits is the same as above, but has congeners from sugar source.
-About ageing
To be called aged cachaça, at least 50% of the volume should be 2 years old. and you can age it in anything, even glass, stainless steel or paraffin coated vessel, the ruler is your taste, but it need to remain a cachaça (again, amount and kind of congeners).
Consuming
Cachaça can be drank direct out of the still, or can be aged, generally 6 months is enough to deal with the bite of a new make spirit, but the more the better
in Brasil is very comon to fill (overflowing) a shot glass and drink it just by sipping, sometimes with a beer in other glass to wash the palate. Some just prefer to drink as a shot.
I know outside Brasil cachaça is more known in caipirinha, but there's also rabo de galo (literally cock tail) wich is the second most popular brazilian cocktail, you should try.
Market
Although Minas Gerais(MG) state is known as the main cachaça producer it's actually only the state that has more registered producers, more than 40% of all cachaça distilleries are settled in MG. São Paulo, Pernambuco and Paraná states are the main column still (continuos distillation) cachaça producers and the main exporters, 70% of cachaça is made using a continuos still, and the 30% remaining are batch distilled.
So the average brazilian consumes around 6,9L/year and cachaça represents 86% of market share of distilled spirits in Brasil.
Nowadays there is more than 40k distilleries, but less than 1k are registered
Cachaça is the 3th most drank spirit worldwide but less than 1% is exported, most of it goes to Paraguay, than Germany, and USA in third, according to this: