Do you know what sugar is made of?

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

In order to understand what sugar is made of in our country, it is worth referring to those regulatory documents that regulate its production. First of all, this is GOST No. 52678-2006, approved in 2006 (December 27). According to its provisions, various types of sugar (including raw sugar, granulated sugar, icing sugar and refined sugar) are produced from sugar beets.

Sugar beet is a root crop that can be grown in the climatic conditions of Russia, unlike palm trees, sugar cane, certain varieties of sorghum and millet, from which sweet extractives are obtained in other regions of the planet (Southeast Asia, China, Cuba, Japan).

To find out what sugar is made of, you need to consider in general terms the technological chain of production of this product. At the first stages, sugar beet roots (by the way, they are light, not red) are washed, weighed and chopped to a state of shavings. Then, in the diffuser, juice is extracted from the raw material using hot water. It contains about 15%sucrose. The juice is separated from the so-called pulp, which is fed to livestock.

Many, thinking about what sugar is made of, do not even imagine how many additional components are involved in this process. For example, the resulting beet juice is mixed with milk of lime, then, after precipitation of impurities, carbon dioxide is passed through the solution for filtration (sometimes the mixture is filtered through ion-exchange resins).

What sugar is made of looks like sugar syrup when refined. It is further evaporated, treated with sulfur dioxide and filtered again. At this stage, the solution already contains about 60% sugar. After that, the raw material must be crystallized in vacuum apparatuses at a temperature of about 75 degrees Celsius. The resulting mixtures are passed through centrifuges to separate sucrose from molasses, resulting in crystalline sugar.

How is refined sugar made? It usually uses a method of drying and pressing sugar syrup, which is subsequently cut into cubes. A more complex and costly method allows the initial pouring of the syrup into molds into which refined sugar is added. The raw material dries in the moulds, is removed and separated.

Today on the shelves you can find quite expensive brown sugar. Its color is due to the fact that the components of cane molasses are not completely separated from the raw sugar, which gives it an additional flavor and color. How sugar is madecane? The production cycle of this product is similar to that of beet sugar. But there are certain features. For example, the juice in the first stage is pressed using rollers, and the processing is characterized by the use of a small amount of lime (up to 3% by weight of the beets and up to 0.07% by weight of the stems).

Which sugar is more useful, everyone decides for himself. Cane is less chemically attacked, which, on the one hand, is good, but on the other hand, it can give undesirable impurities. In addition, brown sugar is considered more nutritious than white sugar.