COMPARISON OF ETHANOL CONTENT FROM DURIAN (Durio zibethinus), PINEAPPLE (Ananas comosus (L.) Merr) AND WATERMELON (Citrullus lanatus) THROUGH FERMENTATION AND DISTILLATION PROCESS

Abstract

Indonesia as a tropical country have many varieties of exotic fruits that contain a lot of water. Many of these fruits already contain ethanol on its raw form but it will produce even more ethanol content through fermentation process. In this research, three different types of tropical fruits: durian (Durio zibethinus), pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merr) and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) was chosen to undergo fermentation process, in addition ethanol content change during fermentation process was also observed. Fermentation process already started during second day as bubbles start to form inside the glass container and was let to continue up to seven days at room temperature. Fruit mixture get cloudier as the result of fermentation process and a distinct alcohol aroma started to spread once it reached fermentation day 4.  Initially durian contain the highest level of ethanol with 12.24 gr followed by pineapple at 4.66 gr and watermelon at 3.12 gr. But on the course of 7 days, ethanol content in durian only increases by less than 3 gr while ethanol content in pineapple jump to 9.75 gr almost twice from watermelon at 5.52 gr. The increase of ethanol content for each fruit did not follow linear trend but rather exponential trend.

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