COFFEE FERMENTATION IN CONTAINERS

Brazil is considered the largest coffee producer in the world, resulting in the production of more than 50 thousand bags of processed coffee in 2022. Specialty coffee refers to a drink that has a quality superior to that of a commodity, being classified with grades greater than 80 points. This evaluation refers to the following coffee attributes, fragrance, aroma, uniformity, absence of defects, sweetness, flavor, among others, according to parameters defined by SCA. Therefore, fermentation has been used to develop new sensory profiles in order to increase this score. In the fermentation process, reactions of organic substances occur, mainly sugars, which are transformed into ethanol, acetic acid, lactic and butyric acid by the bacteria and yeast present there. Therefore, this study aims to correlate the amount of soluble solids (°Brix) present at the beginning and end of fermentation (36 h) affected in coffee cherries of the Paraiso variety, deposited in containers placed in the sun and shade. For this, the initial and final °Brix was evaluated in triplicate at different points of the coffee deposited in the containers, which presented an initial average of (24±2)°Brix and average (16±2)°Brix in the final fermentation time present in the container placed in the sun, and an average of (24±2)°Brix for (19±2)°Brix in the container placed in the shade. Therefore, it is noted that sugar was consumed during the fermentation process in both containers (sun and shade) and it is concluded that due to the biotechnological process, the container placed in the sun suffered a greater loss of soluble solids, being consumed during the fermentation process by the microorganisms present in the coffee, when compared to the container placed in the shade, which may be correlated with the temperature in the fermentation process in the coffees in the container.