Production of a Distilled Spirit Using Cassava Flour as Raw Material: Chemical Characterization and Sensory Profile

Cassava plays a key role in the food production and economies of several countries worldwide. Due to its starch content, alcoholic fermentation is a promising transformation process for adding value to cassava. However, most of the existing cassava beverages are from traditional origin, with the yields and quality often poorly known or controlled due to the use of artisanal production processes. This work aims at the application of easily implementable biotechnological tools for the production of cassava spirits, in order to add value to this raw material. Cassava flour was liquefied and saccharified using enzymatic cocktails, generating a fermentable broth with ~184 g L^-1 of fermentable sugars. This was then fermented into an alcoholic product with ~10% ethanol by volume and distilled for spirit production. Cassava spirits with 40% ethanol by volume, with or without application of oak wood, were produced. For further valorization, volatile fractions of cassava spirits were characterized by gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) and GC-MS. These showed a predominance of yeast fermentation metabolites, complemented by wood extractives where oak chips were applied. Both produced spirits showed desirable sensory traits, receiving good acceptance by experienced tasters, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed process to add value to cassava surplus.