Quality of Plum Brandy as Influenced by Specific Fermentation and Storage Conditions of Plum Mash

Abstract

The quality of plum brandy depends on all technological operations used in the plum processing into brandy. The most common way of plum brandy production in small, rural, artisan distilleries in Serbia involves fermentation of whole uncrushed fruits and double distillation in alembic, resulting plum brandy with traditional sensory characteristics (heavy-flavoured plum brandy). This traditional type of plum brandy may be unacceptable to modern consumers who are accustomed to the light-flavoured ones. The problem is intensified if new plum varieties (Čačanska rodna and Stanley) are used as a raw material for the production of brandy in the same way as an old cultivar Požegača. Regardless of that, due to insufficient technological skills and lack of modern equipment, small distilleries rarely change certain steps of the old production process. The paper shows how minor changes in the process of plum brandy production, which are easy to implement in small distilleries, can affect the production of higher quality plum brandies. The influence of fermentation of plum fruits that are processed in different ways (whole fruits without crushing, whole crushed fruits, crushed fruits without stones) and storage length of fermented mashes from crushed plums with stones (distillation of the mash immediately after fermentation and 15 days after completed fermentation) on the quality of plum brandy are presented. Among the analyzed parameters of plum brandy quality, differences in fermentation and storage conditions of mashes significantly influenced the contents of methanol, esters, total acids and benzaldehyde in plum brandy, as well as their sensory quality.