How is Brown Sugar made?

Brown Sugar is a useful ingredient that is used in kitchens and food production across the world, and is chosen for it's rich flavour, soft texture and sweet caramel notes.

Brown sugar is moist and delivers a deep, rich molasses flavour, making it ideal for bold, full-flavoured sweet and savoury recipes. It is commonly used in brownies, gingerbread, coffee or chocolate-based cakes, fudge, barbecue sauces, marinades, sweet and sour sauces, and pancake syrups. It also works well in savoury dishes such as pies. Brown sugar is also popular amongst brewers wishing to create ales, stouts and other speciality brews.

Many people use it in baking, sauces and desserts, but are unsure how it's made.

That's why the team here at Kent Foods Direct has put together this useful guide to help you understand the way brown sugar is made, covering the production process, the materials used to make it, and how it's granulated.

What is the production process of brown sugar?

When it comes to the production of brown sugar, it begins with sugarcane or sugar beets, or even a mixture of both! The sugar is harvested and processed in order to extract their juice. From there, it's cleaned and heated up until the point where the water evaporates, and the formation of sugar crystals begins.

Many modern production methods adopt the approach of refining sugar into white sugar before adding molasses back into it, with the end result being brown sugar.

The number of molasses added will determine whether the sugar is light brown or dark brown, and is a step in the brown sugar production process that gives it colour, moisture and it's particular flavour.

In traditional methods, brown sugar tends to be less refined, keeping more of the natural molasses throughout the process, which results in a darker colour and makes it taste stronger.

What raw materials are used to make brown sugar?

The main material that is used in the making of brown sugar is either sugarcane or sugar beets, depending on the region. At Kent Foods Direct, all of our brown sugars are made from cane sugar, or a mixture of beet and cane.

Another essential material is molasses, which is a dark and thick syrup that is produced during sugar refining. Molasses is either retained while the sugar is being processed or brought back into the fold later on to create brown sugar.

Water and heat are imperative during the extraction, purification and crystallisation phases, but aren't part of the final product.

How is brown sugar granulated?

Granulating brown sugar is essentially about turning it into uniform, free-flowing crystals while retaining some molasses.

Granulation happens once the concentrated sugar syrup cools down, and sugar crystals start to form. With brown sugar in particular, these crystals are coated with molasses so that they stay slightly sticky and moist in comparison to their white sugar crystal counterparts.

Post the crystallisation stage, brown sugar is carefully dried so that it can retain its moisture without clumping. It is then graded by crystal size and packaged. Essentially, the presence of molasses prevents it from drying fully, which is why it will commonly harden over time if it is left exposed to air.

Got any questions?

Many people like brown sugar and use it in various baking applications, but don't know much about how it's made and what makes it different from standard white sugar.

We hope that you'll now posses a deeper understanding of how brown sugar is made and what goes into the overall process.

Do you have any additional questions about brown sugar? Feel free to get in touch with the team to find out more useful information.