Sugar is a condiment made from plants such as sugarcane or beet, and its main component is sucrose. Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian, Taiwan Province Province, Xinjiang and Northeast China are the main sugar-producing areas in China. Sugar is an important condiment, which can increase the sweetness and flavor of dishes and increase the color of products. It is the main seasoning material for making dishes, especially beet varieties.
According to the requirements of the national production license, it is divided into
White sugar, soft sugar, brown sugar, polycrystalline rock sugar, single crystal rock sugar, cube sugar, borneol sugar, brown sugar (Guangdong) and processed brown sugar (Zhejiang).
According to daily production habits, edible sugar is
Raw sugar, white sugar, cotton sugar, brown sugar, brown sugar powder, lump brown sugar (including brick sugar, bowl sugar, ingot sugar, etc.). ), artificial brown sugar, polycrystalline rock sugar, single crystal rock sugar, borneol sugar, cube sugar, health brown sugar, health rock sugar, powdered sugar, etc.
First, raw sugar
Sugarcane and beet are used to extract sugar and juice. After simple filtration and clarification, sugar crystals were formed by boiling concentration and central separation. It is light brown. Sometimes molasses or water is used. It is the most important sugar product in international trade. Raw sugar is only used as raw material for saccharin processing, and cannot be directly added to food or directly eaten.
B, white sugar
Sugarcane and beet are used as raw materials (one-step method) or raw sugar is used as raw materials (two-step method), and it is made by squeezing juice, filtering, removing impurities, clarifying (raw sugar is not needed in the above steps), vacuum concentrating and boiling crystals, removing honey, washing sugar and drying. White sugar is the most important variety of edible sugar. In foreign countries, 100% of edible sugar is white sugar, and in China, white sugar accounts for more than 90% of the total edible sugar. White sugar is divided into refined, excellent, first and second grades.
C, soft candy
Soft white sugar is made by dissolving and recrystallizing white sugar and raw sugar (also directly produced by beets in Xinjiang and other places). Soft white sugar is a kind of edible sugar that domestic consumers prefer. Its texture is soft and delicate, and the crystal particles are fine. About 2.5% of invert syrup is sprayed during the production process, so the taste is sweeter than sugar. There are three grades of soft candy: refined, excellent and first class.
D, brown sugar
By-products of sugarcane production by one-step method. It is also the main brown sugar product on the market at present. The main ingredient is sucrose, but also contains a certain amount of glucose, fructose, molasses, trace elements, vitamins and other nutrients.
E. brown sugar
Also known as gold granulated sugar, it is mainly produced in Guangdong, Hong Kong and other places and sold. Sugar without honey contains certain nutrients. The color is light yellow. Its production process is similar to that of white sugar, but the nutrients in it are not completely filtered during the production process, so it retains some sugarcane flavors and nutrients and a lot of natural minerals.
F, brown sugar powder
Brown sugar powder, also called powdered sugar, refers to powdered brown sugar produced directly from sugarcane juice without the process of extracting white sugar. Generally, it is produced by indigenous methods. Sugarcane juice is concentrated, dried and crushed. Because it contains more water, it should not be left for too long, and it is easy to deteriorate in high temperature season.
G, sugar cubes
Block sugar is a traditional brown sugar, which is generally divided into flake sugar, brick sugar (cube), bowl sugar, ingot sugar and basket sugar according to the different molds used in production. Its production process is made of sugarcane juice, concentration, cooling and crystallization.
H. Processing brown sugar
Also known as artificial brown sugar, it refers to the waste honey produced in the production of rock sugar as raw material, which is concentrated, cooled and crushed (continuously stirred during cooling). It contains more reducing sugar, but it has no fragrance and nutrition of brown sugar, so it is a kind of sugar with low nutritional value.
I, polycrystalline rock sugar
Also known as old rock candy, earth rock candy and lump rock candy. It is an irregular crystal rock candy made by traditional technology. According to the different production processes, it can be divided into hanging crystal sugar (the finished product is divided into icicles and icicles, with impurities such as cotton thread and paper) and basin crystallization method (all crystal sugar is crystallized along the crystallization basin, and the finished product is pure). According to different colors, it is divided into white rock candy, yellow rock candy and amber rock candy (gray). This rock candy has the medicinal effect of rock candy in traditional Chinese medicine.
J, single crystal rock sugar
In the form of regular bright crystals. It is a new type of rock sugar produced in 1960s. The production process is as follows: the white sugar is heated and dissolved in proper amount of water, filtered, put into a crystallization tank to supersaturate the sugar solution, put into a seed crystal to cultivate the crystal, take it out when the crystal grows, remove honey, centrifugally dry, ventilate and dry, and sieve and classify. Single crystal rock sugar does not have the medicinal effect of rock sugar as mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine.
K, borneol sugar
Borneol sugar is a kind of sugar popular in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, Pearl River Delta, western Guangdong, southern China and Guangxi. The remaining crystallization mother liquor (waste honey) in the process of making rock candy is heated and concentrated, and then acid liquor is added to partially convert it into monosaccharide for later molding. The concentrated sugar solution is prepared by stirring, hanging the net, marking, cooling, removing the net, slicing and sorting. The color is golden and clear, the surface is waxy, and the cross section is evenly divided into upper, middle and lower layers, in which the upper and lower layers are closely agglomerated, and the middle layer is a "sand line" composed of sucrose crystals with smaller particle size.
L, sugar cube
Cube sugar, also known as semi-cube sugar, is a semi-cube (that is, semi-cube) advanced sugar product made of fine refined sugar, which has a history of many years abroad. The production of cube sugar is to mix refined sugar with appropriate crystal size and a small amount of refined sugar concentrated solution (or crystal water) into wet sugar with water content of 1.5 ~ 2.5%, then make it into a semi-square block with a molding machine, dry it with a dryer until the water content is below 0.5%, and package it after cooling.
M, healthy brown sugar
It is a new trend of brown sugar development to add some foods with health care function on the basis of traditional brown sugar, thus becoming brown sugar with health care properties. This kind of products first appeared in Japan, and ginseng, notoginseng and other Chinese herbal medicines were often added. Through the reasonable compatibility with brown sugar, the health care efficacy of brown sugar is increased and it becomes a new generation of health care brown sugar. At present, the common health brown sugar in China includes ginger juice brown sugar, maternal brown sugar, maternal brown sugar, donkey-hide gelatin brown sugar, rose brown sugar, girl brown sugar, jujube ginger brown sugar, wolfberry brown sugar, longan brown sugar and so on. Production processes are mainly divided into two categories: simple mixing and high-temperature cooking.
Healthy candy
In the traditional production process of polycrystalline rock candy, a new type of rock candy with health care function was produced by adding some auxiliary ingredients with health care function. At present, the common health rock candy includes pear juice rock candy, chrysanthemum rock candy, lily rock candy, green tea rock candy and so on. The key point of the production process is to replace the water in the production of rock sugar with the juice and boiling water of auxiliary materials, and its effective components crystallize together with rock sugar.
Oh, powdered sugar
Sugar powder is white powdered sugar with very fine particles. According to different raw materials, it can be divided into white sugar powder and rock sugar powder. The former is mainly used for cooking western food, while the latter is mainly used as a sweetener for high-end drinks. According to different production processes, it can be divided into spray drying method and direct crushing method. The traditional sugar powder will add about 3~ 10% starch mixture (usually corn flour) during storage, which has the function of moisture-proof and preventing sugar particles from tangling. "