Tequila is an alcoholic beverage made with blue Weber agave which is a Mexican plant that grows in the sandy soil of Jalisco Mexico and is often characterized by spiky leaves that grow from pineapple. The core is the raw material used for making
Tequila is an alcoholic beverage made with blue Weber agave which is a Mexican plant that grows in the sandy soil of Jalisco Mexico and is often characterized by spiky leaves that grow from pineapple. The core is the raw material used for making tequila.
There are actually six steps involved in producing tequila. The first step is planting and then harvesting the agave plant. Most producers have their on agave but most of them prefer to buy it from growers.
The second step is cooking and milling. The core will be weight and cut in halves before they are cooked. Traditionally, these are placed in cooking ovens or hornos for cooking. But the modern method of doing this involves the use of steel pressure cookers in order for the core to be cooked faster. Either way, the flavor remains to be the same.
Agave is cooked to convert the starches into sugar that will later be converted into alcohol. To ensure that all sugars are being released, fibers are sprayed with water. The fibers left will be used as fertilizer for the agave plants.
The third process is fermentation and it is where the juice is prepared to be fermented. In this process, tequila starts to get its distinct taste as well as classification. If the manufacturer wants 100% agave tequila, the juice will have to pass straight into the fermentation vessels. Then the alcohol starts to appear and producer will then introduce the yeasts that can either be natural ingredients or chemical catalysts. After which, the tanks are lightly heated and the carbon dioxide is released which give the agave juice 5% alcohol content per volume.
The fermented agave juice will now be prepared for distillation. This involved heating the juice to the vaporization point of the cool and will be cooled and condensed to produce ordinary. It is important for tequila to be distilled not only once, but twice for the ordinary can cause intoxication. In fact, other manufacturers would distill the tequila three to four times. The first distillation removes the tails and heads, the second one determines the perfect of alcohol present in tequila.