Baking

The next step is to bake the agave hearts in an oven. This process converts the complex carbohydrates into simple sugars and softens the plant fibers to facilitate the extraction of sugars for fermentation.

 

Baking was traditionally done in brick or stone ovens that worked by means of vapor injection, in a process that lasted between fifty and seventy-two hours.

 

Nowadays, it is done in steel tanks with a capacity for several tons, known as autoclaves. As thet are hermetically sealed, they reduce cooking time to between eight and fourteen hours.