How to Make Coconut Sweetener?

For me, the word coconut sweetener is a new term. Since I was a kid, I only knew 2 kinds of sweetener; white sugar and red sugar (or also known as brown sugar). It's quite embarrassing actually. As someone who lived in a country with millions of coconut trees, I was just clearly informed lately that one of the sources of the red (or brown) sugar comes from coconut sap (not coconut water).

In some countries, like Thailand, people often called coconut sugar as palm sugar. It's not wrong, but it can’t be said 100% correct. The basic difference from these two sugars is the raw material. Coconut sugar was made from the sap of coconut tree (Cocos nucifera), while palm sugar was made from the sap of other Palmae family (like Palmyra, Borassus flabellifer). Because they come from different source, both has different nutrition content and its health benefits.

The following article is about how to make coconut sweetener from coconut sap (or sometimes also known as coconut nectar).

How to Make Coconut Sweetener Traditionally

Traditional Coconut Sweetener Producer

Basically, the process of making coconut sweetener is quite simple. The process was divided into two steps.

First step is sap collecting.

Second one is evaporation.

Step 1. Sap Collecting

In the first step, farmers will make wound in the certain parts of coconut flower stem. The sap will flow though these wounds, and the farmers will collect them with a bamboo tubes.

Step 2. Evaporation

In the second step, the sap is then collected in a giant pan and placed over moderate heat to remove the water content.

Pure coconut sap has transparent light color and contains 80% of water. As the water evaporates, the sap becomes thicker like syrup and the color turns darker. After this process, coconut sweetener is then packed in many appearances; blocked, crystallized or liquid.

How to Make Coconut Sweetener in Mini Sugar Factory

Mini Sugar Factory is located in Jombang, a small town in East Java. A mechanical engineer called Pak Slamet (who is fortunately my father) owned and designed this factory to process more than 2000 liter of coconut sap/day into coconut sweetener.

Coconut sap, the main raw material comes from Blitar (another town in East Java which located about 3 hours from Jombang).

In this factory (although in mini size), the processing of coconut sweetener will be different with traditional process, especially for the second step (although the basic principle is the same).

If in traditional process, an open jumbo pan was used, mini sugar factory use closed pan system.

Double Effect Vacuum Evaporator

If in traditional process, an uncontrolled temperature of evaporation was used to remove the water content, mini sugar factory controls the evaporation temperature below 60 C. This evaporation system was called DEVE (Double Effect Vacuum Evaporator). DEVE will convert coconut sap (10-15% sugar content) into coconut syrup (75% sugar content)

By using DEVE, the end result of coconut sweetener will have better appearance than those resulted in traditional process. Thanks to the low temperature of evaporation which make it possible to avoid caramel formation (or if it's required, caramel formation can be carried out under controlled).

                                                  

Liquid Coconut Sweetener by Mini Sugar Factory

From 2010 until now, mini sugar factory sold its coconut sweetener production to a company who supply organic and natural products.