Five Steps of Making Cachaça
In this article we highlight the five crucial steps to make an excellent cachaça. Essentially, the best time for production and the care in making a high quality spirit counts a lot. We also stand out our main flag in aging process.
1) Initial production: Time is essencial
At this stage it is necessary to plant and harvest sugarcane. What would be the best time of year for this? Choose the best season in order to get the best production. In this sense is important to stress the characteristics of the plantation, terroir and climate play a very important role.
Produced in Brazil, sugar cane is the main ingredient of cachaça and has a few months of the year that can present a better result in tropical and subtropical areas. It usually occurs between late autumn and early spring. In this harvest period, sugar cane must be juiced immediately and it is very important to choose the right cut and start the production process immediately.
2) Pressing the Cane: Don`t rush, few stalks at a time.
This process is responsible for removing the juice from the sugar cane. The process must be done with perfection to extract the best juice from the sugar cane. The secret here is a few stalks at a time. Don`t rush, the quality of the final product is essential.
3) Fermentation process: converting sugars into alcohol
Once the sugarcane juice has been filtered, yeast is added for the conversion of the sugar into alcohol. During fermentation, the yeast converts sugars into alcohol in less than 24 hours, producing a beverage of approximately lighter ABV also known as wine cane.
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4) Distillation process:
For a cachaça produced in small batches, it prizes enough for the quality using a copper pot still and separating the best part of the final process of distillation known as "heart". Therefore, as soon as fermentation comes to an end this juice is transferred to the copper pot still to be distilled. About just 10% of the distillate is considered the "heart" that is used to produce the final Cachaça suitable for drinking.
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5) Resting or Aging.
After the distillation the cachaça is separated to be rested or aged. To be rested, in general, use stainless steel tanks or wooden barrels over 700 liters. To be considered aged, wooden barrels of less than 700 liters should be used. This is the methodology adopted for cachaça.
In addition to the traditional American and European oak barrels, Brazil offers several native woods for the aging cachaça. Did you know that ? This aspect becomes the most interesting because it adds a peculiar and different flavor of the traditional and well-known oak.
We believe in diversity and we would like to spreading the complexity of native wood barrels because we believe diversity adds quality.
Would like to try Bartolomeu cachaça ?
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