Abstract Mezcal is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Mexico obtained from fermentation of juices, coming from mature agave pineapples, and their subsequent distillation, Agave cupreata juice as natural sugar source is the commonly used. This study aims to investigate mezcal production from Agave cupreata juice by optimizing fermentation at flask level temperature; initial content sugar; pH and initial cell concentration, using single strains, factorial fractional design was applied and for fermentation at bioreactor level 2.5 Liters a Simplex centroid design was developed to determine the most appropriate yeast consortium for producing mezcal. The fermentation process was carried out for 52 h with varied input variables, and all the models showed significant p-values for interaction of variance (< 0.05). It was produced at an optimized temperature of 32.5 °C, initial quantity sugar of 14 °Brix, pH of 5.5 and stirring agitation of 150 rpm was found that it is possible to reach ethanol concentration levels of about 5.9, 5.2, 7.3 and 4.9% v/v for S. cerevisiae, C. lusitaniae, K. marxianus and Z. bailii, respectively. Therefore K. marxianus and Z. bailii strains reached the highest production of ethanol. Fermentation broths from the mixture design were distilled and rectified determining alcohol concentration; mixtures of K. marxianus and Z. bailii reached ethanol content in their distillates, about 42.82% v/v. The developed models could predict the quality of mezcal developed from Agave cupreata using a yeast consortium.

En el presente trabajo, se efectuó una compilación de investigaciones realizadas sobre las diferentes etapas del proceso productivo del mezcal a partir de agave en algunas regiones productoras de México; con el propósito de explicar las problemáticas que enfrenta la cadena productiva agave-mezcal y las estrategias científicas que se han desarrollado para solucionarlas. Con ello se pretende lograr su resistencia y persistencia productiva en el mercado, elaborando un producto que cumpla con las características químicas establecidas por las normas oficiales mexicanas de producción y certificación de calidad, además de ofrecer posibles medidas de control en los procesos para estandarizar el producto y finalmente lograr etapas más eficientes en el proceso de producción.

In this paper, a compilation of investigations of the different stages in the production process of mezcal from agave in some producers regions of Mexico is carried out; to explain some of the problems faced by the productive chain agave-mezcal and scientific strategies that are being developed in the country to solve them. This is intended to achieve its resistance and productive persistence in the market, producing a product that meets the chemical characteristics established by the Mexican official standards of production and quality certification, in addition to establishing more measures of control processes to standardize the product and finally to achieve more efficient steps in the production process.