Production
The harvest
The harvest of the sugar cane takes place in the months of april until
the end of june. At first, the dry leaves of the sugar cane are taken
off (desfoliar cana), to avoid that the newly growing sugar canes are
trampled down in the harvest work.
Then they begin to cut the sugar cane. With a tool called "manjat"
that looks like a hammer but has a blade on one side,the canes are cut
and then they begin with the division of work:
one cuts the sugar cane, the next takes the leaves off, another cuts off
the ends with a sharp machete where there are still green leaves.
Then the sugar canes are put together to about 20 kg heavy bundles and
are carried, on heads of the women to the "Curral" to press
out the juice there. Women here work in the so-called "tarefa salary",
which means that, depending on the distance, they have to carry an determined
amount of bundles in order to get their 350 Esudos.
The press
Arrived at the press ( the so-called trapicho), the juice is pressed
out of the sugar canes: The cane is put between three turning barrels.
The two barrels in the front squeeze the cane, le lower barrel and the
one in the back then press the juice out.
The two front barrels have little dents. Those dents diminuish the effort
needed by the worker to put the cane into the press, because they enter
practically automatically once taken by the dents.
Now the juice comes out on the side of the press and the pressed sugar
cane, called "bagaco" goes out in the end of the press. This
Bagaco, in some distilleries, is burned to deliver heat for the actual
distille - if they do not distillate with gas.
Our press is driven electrically - in some traditional Currals you can
- still today - find presses driven with mules or oxes, who walk in a
circle, turning a wheel which makes the barrels turn.
The house of fermentation
The freshly pressed sugar cane juice (Calda fresco) is now filled into
a fermentation vessel. It can take about 1000 liters, but is only filled
with 800 liters at the most.
Out of the collecting tank next to the press, a tube goes directly into
the house of fermentation.
After the filling, the work of the cellarmaster begins. A citric acid
is added to the calda, to kill possible bacterias and natural wild yeasts
that already got into the calda. Shortly after that we add our yeast,
that, within the fermentation, transforms the sugar into alcohol. Additionnally
hydrocarbonate is created in the fermentation process, which can escape
through a whole on top of the fermentation vessel.
The fermentation produces a lot of energy and the calda heats up and it
seems like it is boiling - but this is only the movement of the yeast
producing more and more of its kind. Now it takes about 4 to 6 weeks -
and sometimes surprisingly only :-) 3 - until the sugar has completely
transformed into alcohol.
In the house of fermentation the most important rule is that is has to
be kept clean during the whole time, to avoid that no other wild yeasts
and bacterias will enter.
At the end of fermentation, when no activity can be observed anymore and
the daily measurement of temperature and Oechsle (and approximate value
how much sugar already transformed into alcohol) shows no changings anymore
and the calda now has a rather clear color, it will be pumped through
a tube directly to a collecting tank by the distille.
The Distille
Out of the collecting tank the fermented juice can now be filled into
the distille. Our distille can be filled with about 400 liters, but the
filling of distilles is only always up to 70 % only.
It is heated with gas, what, in the future is supposed to happen with
biogas. The advantage with gas is, that the temperature can be controlled
and changed precisely, it creates no ash and dirt and no workers to fill
the distille with bagaço is needed.
tarting the distillation, it first brings methanol and acetates down the
distille before from 78°C on, the first ethyl alcohol comes down from
the distille and runs down into a 20 liter gas bottle called garrafão.
In the first cycle we destillate until approximately 98°C. When we
distillate a second time, we only go up to a temperature of 91°C before
we refill the distille with new calda.
After the distillation we have a brandy with a volume of between 56 and
72 vol.%, which is too strong to be drunken. So we diluate the brandy
with distillated water to a volume of 45%.
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