Potencial do uso de madeiras amazônicas para armazenamento de cachaça: estudo sensorial e físico-químico

Abstract

The study of Amazon woods for cachaça, a typical Brazilian drink, storage can innovate for this kind of product, considering the large quantity of wood species that can create unique aromas, colors, and flavor for this beverage. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential use of wood originating from the Amazon region for storage of cachaça —cumarurana(CM), jatobá (JT), and louro-vermelho(LV)— in comparison with oak, the wood traditionally used in the aging of cachaça, by understanding the physicochemical characteristics, the temporal profile and the acceptability. The commercialcachaças were stored for six months in a glass container with wooden cubes from Amazon woods and oak. The physicochemical characteristics, color, presence of volatile compounds, descriptive analysis by the temporal dominance of sensations (TDS), and acceptability were investigated. Cachaças stored with CM and JT presented higher acceptability, similar to the storage with oak, and higher potential of utilization. This acceptability may be related to the detection of the wood flavor and vanilla attributes that were identified in the cachaça stored with oak and the non-identification of the off-flavor attribute in cachaças stored with CM and JT samples. Higher levels of volatile acidity, higher alcohols, dry extract, esters, furfural, and aldehydes; and high concentrations of volatile compounds such as ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, and furfural compounds probably contributed positively to the acceptance of the cachaças, with an emphasis on the aromas sweetish, and husk. On the contrary, cachaça stored with LV presented less potential of utilization and lower acceptability, which may be related to the significant detection of off-flavor attribute in the TDS analysis, higher values for the hue angle (translucent hue), lower concentration ofvolatile acidity, furfural, aldehydes, esters, copper, 2-butanol, and secondary compounds in comparison to the other cachaças evaluated. The Amazon woods CM and JT demonstrated higher potential of utilization for storage of cachaçathan that of LV, but all of them can be used to replace the oak.