Scale Up of Sugarcane Vinegar Production by Recycling of Successive Fermentation Batches and its Organoleptic Evaluation

Sugarcane with a high content of sugar is a potential substrate for making vinegar through alcoholic and acetous fermentation. As an alternative to the longer traditional batch scale vinegar fermentation, a fermentation process involving successive discontinuous cycles of acetification was developed. The cycles standardized for 3 days of shaking (75rpm) and addition of (NH4) 2SO4 and KH2PO4 were recycled with previous lots of fermentation resulting in vinegar production with a time period of 7.6 days compared with 24 days of batch fermentation. The volatile's characterization of sugarcane vinegar identified 50 compounds with 24 esters, 4 alcohols, 2 phenols (aromatic hydrocarbons), 3 ketones, 6 alkene derivative, 3 carboxylic acids, 1 aldehyde and 8 miscellaneous compounds. Physicochemical characterization of vinegar revealed a maximum total phenol content of 67.09 +/- 1.21mg/100mL in control while ascorbic acid content of 108.49 +/- 1.11mg/100mL was best obtained in the treatment of shaking at 75rpm along with supplements. Practical Applications The result of this work will have practical applications in providing a less time-consuming and highly efficient method for vinegar production thus, promoting an impetus to the setting up of natural vinegar production plants in this part of the country.