Processing mango wine using muscovado and coco sap sugar as enhancers

Consumers prefer 'Carabao' mango to other varieties like 'Indian', 'Piko' and 'Hawaian'. During peak production season, there is a surplus of mango fruits especially the less-preferred varieties. Instead of going to waste, these mangoes can be processed into valuable products like wine. Taking off from an earlier study of producing wine using brown sugar, Valdez et al. (Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Unit 1 Ilocos Region, Philippines) improved the product by using other sweeteners like muscovado and coco sap sugar. Valdez's group used three mango varieties (Carabao, Indian, Hawaian) harvested at green stage (75-90 days after emergence) and four sweeteners (muscovado, coco sap, brown sugar, and white sugar). After the preparation and fermentation, the products were subjected to sensory evaluation by both male and female respondents above 21 years old using structured questionnaire. The Hedonic rating scale was used in the sensory evaluation with 0 as 'dislike extremely' and 8 as 'like extremely'. Because of the prohibitive cost analysis, only the 'Carabao' mango and mixed mango wines were analyzed for methanol, ethanol, and other chemical parameters. In terms of general preference and acceptability, wine with muscovado sugar enhancer was 'liked moderately' with numerical rating of 6 in Hedonic scale while wine with the other three sugars (brown, white, and coco sap) was 'liked slightly' with numerical rating of 5. Among the sugar enhancers, muscovado sugar was most preferred for all mango varieties either individually prepared or mixed. This was followed by coco sap, brown, and white sugar in descending order. Methanol content of wine from carabao mango enhanced with four types of sugar was below the minimum detectable level of 50 ppm. On the other hand, ethanol content were 11.4% for coco sap sugar-enhanced wine, 10.9% for muscovado, 7.7% for brown sugar and 7.3% for white sugar. Wine from mixed mango enhanced with four different sugars registered above 50 ppm methanol content while ethanol levels were 12.3% for coco sap sugar enhanced wine, white sugar, 9.8%, muscovado sugar, 11.2% and 9.4% for brown sugar-enhanced mixed mango. The processing of a kilo of green mango produced 0.50 kg pulp, which was later converted into 4 L raw mango wine mash ready for ageing. The processor may opt to sell the product in this form but economic analysis showed that BCR [benefit cost ratio] of 1:0.02 was not profitable. If the processor decides to produce wine by further aging the raw mango mash, a mean BCR of 1.28 after 1 year can be achieved. The most profitable sugar-enhanced wine was the coco sap sugar with BCR of 1.5, followed by brown sugar (1.26), muscovado sugar (1.2), and white sugar (1.14). Two-year ageing gave a much higher profit. For wine with coco sap sugar enhancer, the BCR was 3.15, brown sugar, 2.34, muscovado, 1.88 and white sugar, 1.44. The researchers estimated that for Region 1 alone, the total volume of rejects could be as high as 689,000 kg equivalent Php. 3,446,505. Processing these into wine would give two economic benefits - employment generation and added value to fruit products. The amount of labor needed to process the enhanced raw mango mash from the three varieties was about 212,084 man-days, a significant opportunity to employ women, out-of-school youth, and unemployed and underemployed men. On the other hand, the value of the total rejects amounted to about Php. 3.45 M after processing, the value of the product as raw sugar-mango wine mash was estimated at Php. 32.4 M. One year and 2 years of aging will further increase the product value to Php. 112.2 M and Php. 323.2 M, respectively.