Production of sugar from beets. How to make sugar from beets at home: process features

There are many sweet tooths in the world, and such a product as sugar is practically indispensable in the preparation of various cakes, pastries, cookies and sweets. Many craftsmen try to make all the necessary ingredients at home in order to be sure of the naturalness of the product. You can also make your own sugar at home.

What is sugar?

Sugar is a food product that is obtained from cane or beets of special varieties. It is used in all industries related to the production of dessert delicacies. Also, sugar is used as a preservative and an additive in the preparation of semi-finished products and various products.

Despite a number of useful properties, excessive consumption of this product can lead to diseases. One of these is diabetes. The preparation of sugar is a labor-intensive process and is carried out mainly in large enterprises, but craftsmen make a small amount of a home-made product.

sugar industry

For the manufacture of the product in industrial conditions, varieties are used. Usually it is purchased from farmers in the fall, when it reaches the peak of maturity and gains enough of the necessary trace elements. Before starting the process, the raw material is viewed and the amount of sucrose contained is measured.

Next, the beets are washed and cut into small sticks in special machines. To isolate sugar from the product, cut pieces are passed through water, the temperature of which is 70 degrees. The resulting solution is purified and evaporated, resulting in molasses. It, in turn, is crystallized in a special apparatus and transferred to a centrifuge, where the grains are separated from the remnants of the thick syrup.

The output is wet sugar, which still needs to be dried. Then it is packed in bags and sent to the warehouse.

raw material

To make homemade sugar, you need to prepare raw materials. In the regions of Russia and European countries, it is easiest to get it. When buying, it is necessary to inspect the root crop, it must be clean, without rot and deep damage. The beets are cleaned of apical residual leaves and washed thoroughly.

In warm tropical countries, sugar is the same common product as in Russia and Europe. It is obtained from cane, which is also grown on an industrial scale.

Cooking at home

In its usual state, sugar is sand or refined cubes. A sweet product can obtain such a structure only under industrial conditions, when the crystallization process takes place in special machines. Sugar, cooked at home, most of all resembles molasses or thick syrup. It can be added to tea or in the manufacture of any confectionery.

For the process, it is necessary to prepare two enameled pans, several pieces of gauze and a press. As the latter, you can use any container in which you can collect water for weight.

First way

Washed and peeled beets are placed in a pot of boiling water. It takes about 1 hour to cook the root crop. After this period, the water is drained and the beets are allowed to cool. After that, the peel is thinly removed, and all the pulp is thinly sliced. The finished product is placed in a gauze fabric, folded several times, and placed in a container under the press. The resulting juice is poured into a separate bowl.

After a while, the remaining cake is again placed in a saucepan and poured with water. The volume of liquid should be half the volume of beets. The water must be warm. So the grated root should be insisted for 45 minutes, after which it should be thrown into a colander, over a container where the juice is collected.

Place the beets again in gauze and send under the press. The newly separated liquid is mixed with the already obtained one and filtered. Further, as in large production, it is necessary to evaporate excess moisture. To do this, put a pot of juice on the fire and evaporate to a thick syrup. This sugar recipe at home is the most common and simple.

Second way

Beets must be washed and peeled from the top skin. Next, the fruits are placed in a pressure cooker. There, the root crop under a pressure of 1.5 atmospheres should languish for about 60-80 minutes. After the beets have cooled, they must be crushed and placed in gauze under a press.

As a result, the resulting liquid is filtered and put on evaporation. The process continues until the liquid acquires the consistency of honey. Such sugar can be poured into sterilized jars and rolled up for the winter. Use it like a regular product, adding it to teas and various foods when cooking.

Properties

Sugar is the so-called sucrose, which is found in many vegetables and fruits. In small doses, this product has a beneficial effect on the human body, stimulating blood circulation in the brain and spinal cord. But do not forget that excessive consumption of sweets, such as cakes, sweets, chocolate and the like, can lead to diseases.

After the beets have been removed from the field and delivered to the plant, the process of obtaining granulated sugar begins.

After the beets have been removed from the field and delivered to the plant, the process of obtaining granulated sugar begins.
First you need to clean the raw materials from the tops, straw, sand, slag and stones. Their presence makes it difficult to obtain beet chips and blunts knives. The incoming beets are accumulated in a reinforced concrete tank, which is equipped with various traps to remove various impurities that will interfere with the operation of the mechanisms. After the sorted beets enter the elevator to the beet cutters, they must be washed. They do this in order to keep the knives from becoming blunt and to prevent contamination of the diffusion juice.

For additional cleaning of root crops, beet washers are used, because the dirt is washed off better when the fruits rub against each other. For this, a drum-type beet washer is used, here the roots are washed by 70%, then they go to the rinser. After this procedure, the beets are cleaned with a hydro-stone sand trap. Clean beets enter the screw conveyors. Sugar losses in these processes depend on the season and the quality of the product. The washed beets enter the bunker and then to the beet cutters. To get sugar from beets, it is given the appearance of chips, this method is called diffusion. The thickness of normal chips should be 0.5-1 mm. On good diffusion devices, high-quality chips are obtained, which should not mix during mixing, but move. The temperature during this process should be optimal even in the absence of air.

The diffusion apparatus must have the following parameters:
1. For 100 grams of chips 12 millimeters;
2. 0.3% loss of sugar to the mass of beets in pulp;
3. 120% of the pumping juice relative to the mass of beets;
4. Chips should be in the machine for 100 minutes;
5. The temperature in the apparatus is optimal.

This is followed by the process of purification of the juice obtained by diffusion, which contains sucrose and other sugars that prevent the production of sucrose in a crystalline form - which means that they need to get rid of. For this, physico-chemical purification processes are used. The easiest way to clean is to use lime. Lime is introduced into the juice heated to 90 degrees, and with countercurrent movement, lime allows you to completely precipitate substances that are not amenable to crystallization.

The resulting juice is then thickened by evaporation.
Sugar crystallization considered as the final step. Pure sucrose is isolated from a mixture called syrup. Part of the sucrose is converted into granulated sugar, and part remains in molasses. Therefore, the yield of sugar depends on losses in molasses.

The last step in sugar production is drying. Sugar is dried to remove unwanted moisture from it. For drying, it comes at a temperature of about 50 degrees and with a moisture content of 1.2%. Still wet sugar enters the dryer and is dried with hot air at about 105 degrees, then cooled to 20 degrees. Dried and cooled sugar enters a special sieving machine, and then to packaging. The moisture content of the sugar should match the humidity in the storage.

How is sugar made?

Sugar is usually called products made in various ways and containing mainly sucrose in their composition. Consider how sugar is made.

Beet sugar

Story

The most common type of sugar is the so-called beet sugar. It is made from sugar beet roots. For the first time, the technology of processing sugar beets to produce sugar was proposed in 1747, while the production of sugar began only in 1806. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte ordered to put the production of sugar on a wide scale. To do this, he approved plots for the distribution of butchering sugar beets, he also established bonuses for overworking. Napoleon introduced schools at factories that taught the technology of making sugar.

Production

Sugar extracted from sugar beet was cheaper than cane. In order to extract sugar from sugar beet, it must first be washed and cut. For the extraction of juice with a high content of sucrose, the diffusion method is used. The juice passes through special measuring tanks, and then enters the boilers, where it is filtered from the pulp. Next, the juice is heated to 60 ° C, after which it must undergo two stages of purification: with lime and with carbonic acid. The juice is also purified from these components, which are used to improve the nutritional properties of sugar juice. Further, simple evaporation is used, the result of which will be the formation of sugar crystals in the precipitate. As a result, condensed juice is obtained, it is boiled in vacuum apparatuses. Crystals are separated by centrifuges, and refrigeration may also be used.

Cane sugar

Story

Cane sugar has also gained quite a lot of popularity in the world. Cane sugar was the first of its kind and is still actively used in the food industry. Its origins lie in India, however, in Europe and Egypt, it also began to gain popularity at some point, and in Egypt, the cultivation of sugar cane began as early as the 9th century AD. Sugar cane was most widespread in the Columbus era at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. It should be noted that until the 19th century, sugar remained a luxury.

Today, cane sugar is used everywhere and is even more popular than beet sugar. Sugar cane can only grow in temperate climates, with sufficient rainfall, sugar cane does not tolerate frost.

Production

To extract sugar from cane, the stems must be cut into pieces. So they will be raw materials for the extraction of cane sugar. At the processing plant, this raw material is crushed, juice with water is extracted from the reed using diffusion. Further purification takes place by means of heating and purification with the help of slaked lime. After passing through several evaporators, the remaining syrup enters a vacuum container, where the remaining water evaporates, resulting in crystallization of the solution. Whitening of sugar occurs with the help of sulfur dioxide or carbonic acid.

Sugar prices are skyrocketing. It's spring now, so I'm considering growing sugar beets to get sugar at home. Such sugar will be an excellent substitute for regular store-bought sugar for any jams and sweet preservation. It is easy to "get" and easy to use, as well as significant savings for the family budget, especially if there is a piece of land where it can be planted now in order to get your own sugar in the fall.

OBTAINING REFINED SUGAR FROM SUGAR BEET AT HOME

The beets are thoroughly washed at a temperature of 12 degrees, the tops and small roots are removed, peeled, cut into thin circles and tightly laid in a clay pot, put in the oven for languishing until they become soft, while burning should not be allowed. the drained circles are lightly browned to destroy the beet smell and long-lasting zaiye. Then grind into flour. Sugar content 50%.
BEET SYRUP. - when washing beets, the skin is not damaged, then put in a bad dish with boiling water for 1 hour, boiled is removed from the water, allowed to cool and peeled, passed through a meat grinder and the juice is squeezed very carefully. The squeezed beet mass is placed in a bowl with water at a temperature of 60 degrees (1: 1 ratio), placed and allowed to stand for 2 hours, the solution is filtered through 2-3 layers of gauze and mixed with the squeezed juice. The solution is heated to 80 degrees for 1 hour, and a precipitate forms, which is also filtered.
Juice is purified from non-sugar substances by passing through a carbon filter "Rodnichek": about a speed of not more than 0.5 liters per minute. For better cleaning, pass 2 times, even better will give a 0.2% solution of lime (used in factories) for 2 hours, then the precipitate is filtered i; passed through a carbon filter. If you don’t have a “Rodnichek” charcoal filter, you can use the old “grandfather’s” way to cook birch charcoal - when the coals are in such a strong heat and have already crumbled into small pieces, they are placed in a clay pot, the ash is carefully blown off them, wolfed into small pieces -2 mm) pour the coals into a suitable promise with a hole for draining the syrup so that the flow rate is 0.5 liters per minute. Per liter of coals, you can add 2 teaspoons of dried root: 3-color violets. The purified syrup is boiled in an enamel bowl according to the principle of cooking jam, avoiding burning, 2-3 times. ] a liter of syrup contains 700-850 gr. Sahara. -
Syrup can be boiled in a juice cooker or pressure cooker, while the color is lighter than when boiled in a basin. The condensed syrup is cooled, bottled, tightly closed and stored in a cool place until consumed. The syrup can be used in the preparation of compotes, jelly, jure, marmalade, confectionery, cookies. Only you need it 30% more than the amount of sugar indicated in the recipe. Citric acid (per 1 kg of workpiece), raspberry, chokeberry, red currant juice, as well as various herbs, mint, lemon balm and others give the syrup an original aroma and taste. The syrup is turned into a solid state in the following way: hot syrup is poured into flat trusses, which are placed in running cold water, with STOW the syrup quickly crystallizes. If you need to grind granulated sugar, then it is ground. For cooking jam, 1.3-1.8 kg is used. per 1 kg. berries.
During the production of sugar, waste remains in the form of squeezing and water where the beets have soaked. The squeezes are placed in this water and 0.1% yeast is added, placed for 5-7 days in a warm place for fermentation, and a strong drink is obtained.

Making sugar from sugar beets at home

Different ways of making beet sugar at home from scratch: from preparing raw materials to making syrup. Recipes of natural Russian products for a healthy lifestyle are now available to everyone.

Beet sugar: from the depths of history to today

It so happened historically that sugar made from cane was most widely used. Such a product was very expensive, because the main territories where the plantations were grown were far beyond the boundaries of civilized Europe and wild Rus', and, therefore, the costs associated with transportation played a significant part in the cost of the sweet substance. Perhaps the only alternative was honey. However, already in the 16th century, thanks to the scientific research of Andreas Sigismund Markgraf and a certain French botanist Achard, another method of extracting sugar from sugar beets became known to the world. By its properties, sugar obtained in this way not only makes it possible to widely use it by the population, but also has a number of advantages over its cane counterpart, namely: it has a lower calorie content and contains the maximum amount of micro and macro elements, since it does not require refining.

In Russia, beet sugar has become more widespread due to the above reasons.

The factory receives raw materials - beets. Thoroughly washed in a special washing shop and cut into uniform chips. At the next stage, this mass is fed into tanks, where it is filled with hot water. Under the action of water, the sugar and some other substances contained in it are separated from the chips, which, when oxidized, give the juice a dark brown color. To get the most out of the raw material, water leaching is carried out several times. Production waste - repeatedly soaked chips are sent to feed livestock.

At the next stage, the resulting juice is purified from impurities, first heated to 80 ° C - this allows you to get rid of protein substances, and then processed in sealed tanks with milk of lime, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Undesirable impurities at this stage precipitate, which remains in the tanks after the subsequent evaporation of the juice. Evaporation allows you to get a sweet syrup, which is then filtered and thickened in special containers. The output is granulated sugar with molasses, which is then separated from sugar crystals in centrifuges.

Beet sugar has a darker color than cane sugar, so it is washed with water at the end and dried.

Getting sugar from beets at home

You can now replace store-bought sugar with real Russian products: refined beetroot and sweet syrup.

Beetroot refined

Rinse and peel the beets. Then cut it into thin rings and place in a clay pot. Immerse the container in the oven to steam, while avoiding burning our workpiece. From time to time look into the pot - the beets should become soft. Then pour the beetroot circles onto a baking sheet and place back in the oven. Now the beets should dry out. For longer storage and improvement of the general properties of our beets, then it is better to lightly fry the dried rings in a pan. Just a little - it will also slightly improve the smell.

For consumption, you just have to grind these slices into flour, so they can be used to replace store-bought sugar in cooking.

For tea, you need to roll these whole slices in flour a little and fry in butter. Tasty and healthy.

Getting syrup: the first way

Remove the roots and heads and rinse the beetroot without peeling off the skin. Place the washed root crops in dense rows in a saucepan with already boiling water. Follow the fire. Beets should be boiled in boiling water. After 1 hour, remove the root vegetables from the pan, wait for them to cool and remove the peel.

Cut the beets into thin slices no thicker than 1 mm. Place it crushed in this way under a press to obtain juice, after wrapping it in a clean canvas bag. Place the squeezed mass back into the pan, pour hot water at the rate of half the volume of root crops. This blank is for the second spin. Let it stand for half an hour, and then strain the liquid into the bowl where the juice was collected from the first extraction. Put the evaporated cake back into the canvas bag and repeat the pressing. Heat the collected juice to 70-80 ° C, and then strain through gauze folded several times.

The last step is evaporation. The juice must be evaporated until it is completely thickened in a low enameled basin or other flat vessel.

Getting syrup: the second way

Prepare, as in the first method, the beets for cooking, now removing a thin layer of skin. It is necessary to steam in an autoclave for about an hour maintaining a pressure of 1.5 atm. If there is no autoclave, you can use the boiler, which should have a grate at the bottom, but it will take more time.

Having received a soft beet, it is crushed and passed through a press twice. Strained juice is then evaporated, as in the first method.

Store the syrup in a cool place, protected from direct sunlight, like any preservation.

In baking cooking, the proportion of syrup to flour is approximately 0.75-1:1. For making jam, the ratio of syrup to berries by weight is 2:1.