Screening and Physico-chemical Study of Quality Jaggery Prepared from Different Early and Mid Season Sugarcane Varieties

Jaggery, a traditional sweetener is produced from the sugarcane juice and its quality mainly depends on cane juice quality. It is specific to check, which sugarcane variety is producing the best jaggery in terms of its quality and recovery. Thus, this study was undertaken to screen five different promising early (CoH 160, Co 89003, Co 0238) and mid season (CoH 119, CoH 167) sugarcane varieties and to prepare and evaluate jaggery qualitatively.

The different sugarcane varieties were harvested at proper maturity, weighed and crushed to extract juice in November, January and March. The juice was analyzed for various physico-chemical parameters viz., total soluble solids (^OBrix), purity, pol, juice recovery (%) and commercial cane sugar (%). Good quality jaggery was prepared and evaluated for the sensory characteristics. The jaggery was evaluated quantitatively for physico-chemical parameters (reducing sugars, total sugars, sucrose, net rendement value, hardness and minerals.

The jaggery was found to have 8.50–10.70 per cent moisture, 68.82–78.95 per cent sucrose, 7.67–8.83 per cent reducing sugars and 1.45–2.63 per cent ash. The jaggery prepared from Co 89003 had significantly highest sensory scores over jaggery made from all other varieties. Jaggery made from CoH 160 variety was comparable with that of Co89003 variety. The early sugarcane varieties Co 89003 and CoH 160 were found to produce good quality jaggery as compared to mid-late varieties.