Contrary to popular belief, sugar does not grow on trees. That's right, it is taken from the store, in such paper or plastic bags :-)
So:
Sugar is made from either cane or sugar beets.
Cane does not grow here, so raw sugar is brought to us from Brazil and Cuba. Brown like that. What for? Because there are no processing industries, they eat this and generally do not bother. What's wrong with brown raw cane sugar - I don't know, I don't eat it at all. :-)
I'm talking about our option, beetroot.
It all starts in a clean, open field. The field is called kagatny. Kagat is such a hellish pile of sugar beets, looks something like this:
The first thing I asked - "well, heaps heaped in the middle of the field, but what's the catch?"
It turned out that everything is not so simple: heaps are piled in a strictly defined order, in long paths, such as coke is poured :-) Moreover, the heaping technology is also enchanting: a 10-ton KAMAZ truck arrives, drives into the field and climbs onto a special bead-laying machine (BOOM), after which is why a special inclined platform tilts the KAMAZ that way by 45 degrees and pours the beets out of it into itself. After that, it briskly tosses it with a conveyor into a pile. The fields cover many, many hectares.
But that's not all. Between the paths of sugar beet coke there are minks. That is, concreted trenches are like that. Their scientific name is hydrotransporter. In general, everyone watches the technology every day in the toilet: throw something brown into the conveyor container and press the drain. Under the influence of the elemental forces of nature, it is cheerfully carried away into the distance. Accordingly, a powerful bulldozer acts as a source of power. I must say that the water in the outhouse of the hydraulic conveyor is hot and rushing under strong pressure.
In the background, you can already see the production shops. They are all in a haze of steam, why - I will tell further.
All slightly washed beets are washed off there further.
Well, then the process begins:
First, they wash everything as they should (sorry for the quality of the photos, I didn’t take a normal fotik, everything was filmed on a phone that cannot shoot a priori). Here it comes along the conveyor, the stones are separated:
Then everything goes into the meat grinder. Ugh, juicers. More precisely, it is cut into small strips, like a carrot in Korean. Then this happiness with a cheerful step falls out onto the conveyor and goes further, now sugar must be squeezed out of all this.
How is sugar extracted from carrots in Korean? very simple - it falls into a huge vat and is brewed there. It seems the technologist called the word "separation". There were many words, including not very decent ones from the series "defecation of the first level." But I will keep silent :) In short, everything is boiled in the vat, sugar comes out of the straw, and it remains empty. It is squeezed out and pulp is obtained. The pulp is then dried and granulated. Used to make kitiket, whiskey and other crap. Do you think it's made from meat? :))))
The resulting juice is then the raw material. Then chemical production begins: milk of lime is added to the juice, and something else is there. Plus it gets hot. is mixed. Therefore, it's hot. In general, the temperature in the workshops is 40-50 degrees. Summer 60 and above. Upstairs on the upper floors they say in the summer it reaches 100. Sauna.
The different colors in the photo are different factions. The molasses is separated from the syrup, and so on.
The precipitate is filtered and discarded. All over the world they fertilize the soil. But the land of the Kuban is already generous.
Filters
They cook again. Pay attention to the inspection hatch, there the photo will be larger.
here it is large, it flows, it is already thick. It can be seen that brown, i.e. still far from the white sugar that is in stores.
Here are the first crystals.
Further is easier. Gotta get rid of the brown. And then people will not be able to eat it normally :-)
Everything is simple here - brown due to molasses. You need to squeeze her out. All crystals are thrown into centrifuges. sugar stays in, molasses out. It is then processed further so that sugar does not remain in the waste. Everything is humane. Here is the centrifuge. In general, they are quite large. The white inside is sugar crystals.
The quality is continuously monitored, samples are taken and tested in the laboratory. Everything that is not according to GOST - everything is nafig again in a vat for remelting :-) In other industries it would be like that.
And then the end of the technological process appeared. White (already white!) Sugar goes further along the conveyor. It is raw, so it needs to be dried. At the bottom of the conveyor there are special containers - sugar traps - they collect what has been spilled out of them, then again for remelting. Wasteless production.
Drying in two stages. Here in such drums. They are huge, about 3 meters in diameter for sure.
Do you think that's all? but no ... you can’t guess the last technological operation. Then the resulting sugar - sand is treated with a MAGNET :-) In case something broke off from the equipment. The magnet catches all the pieces of iron, all of a sudden they appear there, let's say after equipment repairs.
Now for some dry facts:
about 6 thousand tons of beets are processed per day.
from one ton of beets, an average of 13-16 kilograms of sugar is obtained.
This is such an interesting tour.
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. The crystals are separated by centrifuges, and refrigeration can 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.
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 Russia, and, consequently, 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 beet became known to the world. According to 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.
industrial productionIn 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, 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.
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 the beets, the skin is not damaged, then they are placed in a bad dish with boiling water for 1 hour, the boiled is removed from the water, allowed to cool and the skin is removed, 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 prepare 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 been buried. 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.
