How Do You Keep Sugarcane Juice Longer?

In this era, people used to drink artificial cool drinks. But the truth is those drinks are to the path for the hospital. So, why can’t you try fresh juices that have the ability to boost your health?

Sugarcane juice is at the top of the list among these healthy boosters. Asia and South America are the leading producers of sugarcane worldwide.

However, sugarcane juice is high perishability because it has high bacterial compounds. Also, sugarcane juice is very susceptible to the growth of yeast, mold, pathogenic bacteria, and spoilage bacteria.  So, within a few hours, fermentation begins in sugarcane juice, and the natural refreshing properties of the sugarcane juice are lost.

Therefore, you can not keep crushed sugarcane juice at least for a few hours. If you clearly observe, you can notice that the color of sugarcane juice changes to greyish or brownish immediately. Hence, you have to consume the sugarcane juice immediately.

So, don’t we really have an option to preserve sugarcane juice? If not, how the sugarcane juice is available in the market?

It is no doubt; you can keep sugarcane juice long time by following preselection methods. Simply many manufacturers follow peeling, crushing, filtration, pasteurization, and bottling. They add Sodium Benzoate at 125 ppm (about 1 gram in 10 liters of sugarcane juice) as a preservative.

Here is a Sugarcane drink that I have tasted previously. If you are interested try this.

Through this, sugarcane juice can be kept for around 6 months at room temperature. Another important thing is that you can store sugarcane juice without losing flavor and the quality of canes.

In addition to that, you can add some water, ice, masalas, and some spices to enhance the taste of the sugarcane juice. Try it. Sure, you can be experienced the fantastic flavor!

However, according to the ICAR- Sugarcane Breeding Institute, there are two methods to keep your sugarcane juice longer. So, let us see one by one.

Preservation of sugarcane juice by sulphitation

There is a standardized protocol for the preservation of sugarcane juice with sulphitation treatment at 100 ppm, and it is permissible potassium metabisulfite level as per FSSAI.

However, this method can keep the sugarcane juice for up to 90 days in the refrigerator without any loss of color, taste, and customer acceptance.

If you prefer to follow this method to keep sugarcane juice longer, go through the below steps.

Step 1: Harvesting

It is time to harvest the sugarcane at the 10 to 12 months crop age at the ground level.

Step 2: Cleaning the canes

Here you cannot harvest pure, clean canes without any damage. For instance, there are mold and insect-infected canes. So, you have to remove these canes.

Then collect the good canes and wash them properly with the heavy water flow. Because it will help remove dirt, soil, and microorganism, it is better to clean the handling area with disinfectant.

Step 3: Scrape the rind

After cleaning the canes, you should scarp or remove the rid the canes. Then wash them using boiling water.

Step 4: Cleaning the juice crusher

Clean your juice crusher using boiling water followed by 10 ppm sodium hypochlorite solution because it helps to avoid any contamination from the juice crusher.

Step 5: Crush the canes

Then after cleaning the crusher, you can gentry crush the sugarcanes. However, stainless steel crusher is ideal.

When you use a manual juice crusher it must be strong enough to squeeze sugarcane. Because sugarcane is stronger than lemon. I’m using this Heavy Duty Single Press squeezer. 

Step 6: Collect and filter the sugarcane juice

You use multi-layers of clean muslin cloth to filter the collected juice. It would be best to remove the suspended and floating material.

Then it is time to collect the filtered sugarcane juice to sterilized containers.

Step 7: Sulphitation

Under this step, you must add 100 ppm potassium metabisulfite in the juice by weight.

Step 8: Bottling the sugarcane juice

Put the sugarcane juice into the sterilized glass bottle under aseptic conditions. Then pack it air-tight. After filling the bottle, allow for in-bottle pasteurization – 65⁰ C/25 minutes. Here do not heat the sugarcane juice above 80⁰ C.

However, bottling the sugarcane juice is not totally done until it is completely cool to room temperature. Then you must keep the sugarcane juice bottles in the refrigerator.

Preservation of sugarcane juice by steaming

If you wish to keep the sugarcane juice for a long time period, you can follow the below methods.

Step 1: Harvesting the sugarcane cultivation

Here, you can harvest the cane that reaches the 10 to 12 months age at ground level.

Step 2: Clean the harvested canes

After harvesting, you should clean up the canes well before getting extracts. Meanwhile, do not forget to remove the mold and insect-infected canes.

Wash good canes using heavy water flow because it can remove soil, dirt, and microorganisms. Further, you must clean the handling area using a disinfectant.

Then scrap the cane rinds. Then you must clean the scraped cane rinds well from boiling water.

Step 3: Steam treatment for sugarcanes

You should autoclave the cleaned scrap canes for 15 minutes at 7 psi.

Step 4: Clean the cane juice crusher

Clean your cane juice crusher by using 10 ppm sodium hypochlorite solution with boiling water because it helps to avoid any contamination from the cane juice crusher.

Step 5: Crushing the canes

Crush the sugarcanes by using stainless steel crusher.

Step 6: juice collection and filtration

You can remove the suspended and floating material by filtering the cane juice through a multi-layer clean muslin cloth. Then collect the filtered sugarcane juice in sterile containers.

Step 7: Cleaning of glass bottle

Before filling the sugarcane juice, you must clean the glass bottle thoroughly and sterilize it.

Step 8: bottling the sugarcane juice

Put the cane juice into the sterilized glass bottle under aseptic conditions and pack air-tight. Then allow for in-bottle pasteurization with 65⁰ C for 25 minutes. Then allow them to cool to room temperature. So, now you can keep it in the refrigerator.

In addition to the above main preservation methods, peoples follow different tips to enhance the shelf life of the sugarcane juice.

Below are some tips for them. But the period that sugarcane juice can be kept in may be varied with relevant tips.

Tip 1# Some people add Moringaseed leaf, lemon, or ginger extract to fresh cane juice and heat them because these ingredients work better and produce high antimicrobial activity.

Tip 2# Also, you can add 20 ml of Moringa juice, 5ml of lemon juice, and 1ml of ginger juice into 200ml of cane juice.

Then follow the heated treatment at around 72⁰ C for 15 secs. Additionally, you can add a color enhancer prior to the treatment.

Tip 3# Also, people store the sugarcane juice in a vacuum pack as soon as taking the juice from the sugarcanes. Then immediately seal it.

In addition to the methods mentioned above, some companies use High-Pressure Processing (HPP) technology to preserve sugarcane juice.

For instance, PPE is used by leading sugarcane juice companies in India. Raw Pressery is the pioneer of this technology, and now they release commercialized sugarcane juice flavored with ginger and lemon.

Another brand that goes with HPP is Freshtrop Fruits Limited. However, they distribute their high-quality and nutrients products, including sugarcane juice.