Development of Crystallized Palm-Syrup Sugar as A Natural Sweetener

A. MAIN IDEA
Introduction
Palm syrup has a high potential to become a new sweetener which is natural and
chemical-free, but it is contains a lot of invert sugar, so difficult to develop it to be a new
product. Because of that, develop of crystallization method of the palm syrup was needed.
Materials and Methods
Paragraph 1: The soluble solid content of palm syrup that is analyzed is usually not
less than 18
o
Brix.
Paragraph 2: Some of chemical materials that were needed in the analysis process.
Paragraph 3: Steps of crystallized palm-syrup sugar production.
Paragraph 4: Chemical analysis was conducted to measure moisture content and water
activity.
Paragraph 5: Determination of sugar color with CIE system.
Paragraph 6: Determination of storage time of crystallized palm-syrup sugar.
Paragraph 7: Sensory characteristic of crystallized palm-syrup sugar using panelists.
Paragraph 8: The Correspondence Analysis plot identified the trends of the focus
panel opinions related to the sensory attributes of the crystallized palm-syrup sugar.
Results and Discussion
Paragraph 1: Crystallization occured at supersaturated syrup concentration of 832
Brix with yield of 3-4 mm crystal size.
Paragraph 2: As crystallization period increased the CIE color values and C*
increased, which indicated the brighter color of mixture solution.
Paragraph 3: Moisture content and water activity of the crystals decreases
significantly.
Paragraph 4: The opinions across the panel groups on the color, flavor/taste attributes
for of the crystallized palm-syrup sugar itself and when mixing with the beverage of
choices were not significantly different, except the odor.
Conclusions
Process of produced crystallized palm-syrup sugar is natural and free of chemicals so it
has good color, unique flavor, and is promising to be a source of new natural sweeteners in
the market.






B. RESUME
Background
Most of Palm syrup is locally consumed and traditionally processed as the bottled palm
juice, palm wine, and palm sugar. This syrup has unique odor and taste, so has high potential
to be a new sweetener which is natural and chemical-free. But since the raw palm syrup is
composed of high invert sugar, it is quite difficult to develop or transform into the new
product which create the higher value than the existing products. Thus, research in this
journal was to develop the crystallized sugar formulation and processes from palm syrup.
Method
The first step was prepare material such as palm syrup that has soluble solid content no
less than 18
o
Brix and brown sugar. And then, raw palm syrup was evaporated at temperature
92 3
o
C. This process would produce supersaturated syrup with soluble solid content
between 60
o
Brix and 85
o
Brix (the soluble solid content that had gotten was mixture ratios of
syrup and brown sugar were varied to get the final solution concentration prior to
crystallization occurred). Then, crystal would grow for 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 hours from this
supersaturated syrup. After that, conducted crystal separation and drying to get granulated/
crystal sugar.
Next step of this process was chemical analyses of crystal sugar. This analyses consist
of moisture content, water activity, and reducing sugar in the mixture solution. Besides that,
color of the sugar was measured and accelerated shelf life testing (ASLT) of the crystallized
palm-syrup sugar was conducted too. After that, sensory characteristics of crystallized palm-
syrup sugar evaluated by focus group, and the last analysis was statistical analysis.
Moisture content of crystal sugar was measured by sand pan technique, whereas water
activity was measured by equilibrating a sample in a chamber held at constant relative
humidity, and reducing sugar in the mixture solution was determined by Lane Eynom
method. The color of crystal sugar was determined in CIE system by a color reader. ASLT
(Accelerated Shelf Life Testing) of the crystallized sugar was conducted at two testing
temperature, 30
o
C and 50
o
C for 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. Meanwhile, to sensory
characteristic test, the writer used panelist that consist of thirty consumers that was selected
and separated into 3 groups; teenager, offices , and housewife. Its based on the occupation
and the product usage. The panelist would be asked their opinion about product
characteristics (the color, odor, and flavour) and package design comparing to the
commercial sweeteners. The last analysis that conducted was statistical analysis, where the
experiment was repeated at least three times and was conducted on separate lots of palm
syrup collected in different weeks. This experiment was designed as a randomized complete
block.
Result and Discussion
The result of this experiment showed the crystallization occurred at supersaturated
syrup concentration of 832
o
Brix (~60% syrup and 40% brown sugar mix) that achieved
high yield of 3-4 mm crystal size. The color of crystallized palm-syrup sugar on the reddish-
brown color, it was based on CIE system that showed when crystallization period increased
the CIE color values (L*, a* and b*) and C* increased, which indicated the brighter color of
mixture solution. Meanwhile, for moisture content and water activity of the crystals was
decreases significantly from 1,23% to 0,47% and 0,46 to 0,22. Thus, storage time for this
sugar increased.
Acceptance score of sensory characteristics of crystallized palm-syrup sugar based on
DRTA was not significantly different with predicted values.
The opinions across the panel groups on the color, flavor/taste attributes for of the
crystallized palm-syrup sugar itself and when mixing with the beverage of choices were not
significantly different (p-value of 0.46, 0.14 and 0.14, respectively), except the odor with p-
value of 0.002. Focus group result showed a favor of natural brown color and taste of the
crystals despite its slow dissolving in the beverage. The sweetness was perceived even with a
small amount of crystals was added, especially in group of office-staff panelists who were
identified as the light-medium user.
Conclusion
Based on the experiment and analysis, crystallized palm-sugar was created at
supersaturated syrup concentration of 832
o
Brix (~60% syrup and 40% brown sugar mix)
with high yield of 3-4 mm crystal size. Water activity of crystallized palm-sugar was
decrease, thus made the crystallized palm-sugar be long lasting with Desired Real Time
Aging (DRTA) for 120 days. The color, flavour, taste attributes for of the crystallized palm-
syrup sugar itself and when mixing with the beverage of choices were not significantly
different, except the odor. So, the crystallized palm-sugar had good quality and is potential to
be a new sweetener.














C. DIFFICULT WORDS/ SPECIFIC TERMS
1. Invert sugar is a mixture of equal parts of glucose and fructose resulting from the
hydrolysis of sucrose. It is found naturally in fruits and honey and produced artificially
for use in the food industry.
2. Differed is to be unlike or distinct in nature, form, or characteristics. This word have
another meaning, it is to be of unlike or opposite opinion : disagree.
3. Accelerated shelf life testing (ASLT) is an important part of the self-life testing done
during any product development cycle. Key data on the chemical and physical changes
to a product are required in order to effectively develop and market it. Companies may
use various methods, and different methods are used for diferrent products.
4. Prior is existing or coming before in time, order, or importance. It has same meaning
with earlier, previous, preceding, foregoing, antecedent, and advance.
5. Brown sugar is not a natural sugar product like raw, brown-colored sugars; it is white
sugar (sucrose) with some of the molasses added back in. During the refining process,
the molasses in the sugar is spun off into a separate product (molasses is considered a
by-product of sugar refining). Brown sugar contains from 3.5% molasses (light brown
sugar) to 6.5% molasses (dark brown sugar).
6. Odor is property of a substance that activates the sense of smell or a sensation
perceived by the sense of smell/ scent.
7. Degrees Brix is (symbol Bx or Brix) is the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One
degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of
the solution as percentage by weight (% w/w). If the solution contains dissolved solids
other than pure sucrose, then the Bx only approximates the dissolved solid content.
8. Panelist is a member of small group of persons gathered for formal public discussion,
judging, playing a radio or television game, etc.
9. Despite is used as a preposition when something happens even though it might have
been prevented by something else.
10. Crystallisation is a separation technique that is used to separate a solid that has
dissolved in a liquid and made a solution.
11. Saturated solution is a solution that has as much solid dissolved in it as it can possibly
contain.