Loading patent…
AssigneeCoconutz Pte. Ltd.
InventorsPeter Samuel James CHEETHAM, Christoph LANGWALLNER, Margit LANGWALLNER, Christian HERMANSEN, Candy Chuing Tey SHIANG, Wen Jue Amelia TAN
Estimating the term…
A method of making a flavoured sweetener or food product by incubating an unrefined plant extract containing sucrose as the main solute with a microorganism or microorganisms to form a modified unrefined plant extract; evaporating water from the modified sucrose-based plant extract to form a concentrate; and cooking the concentrate to develop colour and flavour to produce the flavoured sweetener is disclosed. The flavoured sweetener can serve as a coconut sugar substitute. In a preferred embodiment the unrefined plant extract comprises sugarcane juice or sugar beet juice, and the microorganisms may be selected from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus flexus, or a Klyveromyces species. The flavoured sweetener can be used to make a range of food and beverage ingredients and also food products including sauces, natural flavour extracts and flavour molecules, chocolate, health foods and convenience forms of the various forms of flavoured sweeteners.
A process for making a coconut sugar substitute comprising:
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the unrefined sucrose-based plant extract containing sucrose as the main solute comprises sucrose-based plant juice;
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the unrefined sucrose-based plant extract containing sucrose as the main solute comprises a sucrose carbon-13 to carbon-12 isotope ratio (13C/12C) of more than or equal to 11 parts per thousand, with a range of delta 13C values of −5 and −20.
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the unrefined sucrose-based plant extract containing sucrose as the main solute is adjusted to a refractometric dry substance content of 8° Bx to 40° Bx prior to incubating with the one or more aerobic microbial strains.
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the one or more aerobic microbial strains comprise an osmo-tolerant and/or a halo-tolerant aerobic microbial strain able to grow in a medium with a refractometric dry substance content of 8° Bx to 40° Bx.
The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the one or more aerobic microbial strains is any one selected from the group comprising Xanthomonadaceae;
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the modified unrefined sucrose-based plant extract is heated and cooked until reaching a temperature and refractometric dry substances content of 65° C. to 170° C. and 50° Bx to 100° Bx, or 110° C. to 130° C. and 75° Bx to 95° Bx or 120° C. and 90° Bx.
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein incubating the sucrose-based plant extract is operated with the sucrose-based plant extract having a refractometric dry substances content of 8° Bx to 30° Bx, for 1 hour to 24 hours, at a temperature from 20° C. to 40° C., at a pressure from 1 bar to 5 bar, at a pH from 4 to 10, a linear tip speed from 0 m/s to 10 m/s, gassing from 0 vvm to 2 vvm (volume gas per volume medium per minute) and a relative dissolved oxygen concentration from 20% to 100%.
The process according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising the step of reducing the sucrose concentration of the coconut sugar substitute to form a reduced sucrose coconut sugar substitute.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.