[Sca-cooks] black sugar

[Decker, Terry D.]

I've heard that brown sugar is white sugar which has been mixed with
molasses, but I have a hard time with the idea.  Molasses extraction is part
of the refining process, why spend the extra time and money completely
refining the sugar only to add molasses and get a product that appeared in
an earlier stage of the refining.

Raw sugar is produced by crushing and shredding the cane and adding a little
water to help extract the juice.  The juice is then heated, clarified with
lime and the impurities are decanted.  The juice is then run through an
evaporation process until it reaches about 900 on the Brix scale (a
hydrometric measure of sugar content in a liquid).  The juice is then
centrifuged to remove the molasses and the liquids, leaving raw brown sugar.

Turbinado sugar is produced by washing off the surface molasses.  Other than
that, it is raw sugar.

Raw sugar is passed through carbon filters to decolorize the sugar, then it
is cooked down in vacuum evaporators to extract the sugar crystals.  As I
understand it, the amount of filtration can be varied.  Centrifuging to
removes the last of the liquid.  This processing produces most of the white
and brown sugars available.

Muscovado or Barbados sugars are dark brown sugars heavy with molasses.
Demarara is a light brown sugar with large crystals.

Bear

> I have seen several times here people saying that brown sugar
> was just whit=
> e sugar mixed with molasses.
>
> I was told (cant remember where, though) that the cheap
> versions of brown s=
> ugar are this, but that it also has to be labled in the
> ingredients, at lea=
> st in the U.S. The better brown sugars are sugar that hasnt
> gone through th=
> e extra processing that white sugar does, and are not just
> white sugar mixe=
> d with molasses.
>
> Anyone ever heard this?
>
> Ilia