Characterization, fermentation, and volatile profile of distilled beverages produced from defective maple syrup

In this work, maple syrups with various flavor defects were physically and chemically characterized and assessed for their fermentative potential in alcoholic beverage production. The flavor defective maple syrups, as well as a control sample, were analyzed for soluble solids, pH, density, viscosity, transmittance, color (L∗, a∗, b∗), moisture, ash content, sugar profile, organic acids, and ethanol concentration. The defective maple syrups were fermented using Saccharomyces cerevisiae at 30 °C for 204 h. Maple syrups known for having flavor defects also have several differences in composition when compared to the regular commercial one (including but not limited to pH, viscosity, and color). In addition, the content of glucose, fructose, and sucrose occurred in different proportions, which is related to the types of defects. Overall, the amount of ethanol produced by VR1, VR11, VR4 Acid, VR5, and VR6 2 was statistically equal to that of the control (normal commercial maple syrup) with a fermentation efficiency of 95.15 %. The faster fermentation kinetics for the VR1 and VR4 Acid shows the potential of these VRs for industrial processes. After distillation, the volatile profile of the defective maple syrups – VR1, VR11, VR4 Old, VR5, VR6 1, and VR6 2 – were similar to the regular ones suggesting that defective maple syrups are suitable for producing distilled beverages with a desirable volatile composition.