Granulated Brown

About This Project

Natural brown sugar, raw sugar or whole cane sugar are sugars that retain a small to large amount of the molasses from the mother liquor (the partially evaporated sugar cane juice). Based upon weight, brown cane sugar when fully refined yields up to 70% white sugar, the degree depending on how much molasses remained in the sugar crystals, which in turn is dependent upon whether the brown sugar was centrifuged or not. As there is more molasses in natural brown sugar, it contains minor nutritional value and mineral content. Some natural brown sugars have particular names and characteristics, and are sold as turbinado, demerara or raw sugar if they have been centrifuged to a large degree. Brown sugars that have been only mildly centrifuged or unrefined (non-centrifuged) retain a much higher degree of molasses and are called various names across the globe according to their country of origin: e.g. panela, rapadura, jaggery, muscovado, piloncillo, etc.

Although brown sugar has been touted as having health benefits ranging from soothing menstrual cramps to serving as an anti-aging skin treatment, there is no nutritional basis to support commercially manufactured brown sugar as a healthier alternative to refined sugars despite the negligible amounts of minerals in brown sugar not found in white sugar. This claim refers to processed white sugar that has molasses added back into it, not Turbinado, demerara and raw sugars.

Turbinado, demerara and so-called “raw” sugars are made from crystallized, partially evaporated sugar cane juice, and spun in a centrifuge to remove almost all of the molasses. The sugar crystals are large and golden coloured. This sugar can be sold as is or sent to the refinery to produce white sugar.

Muscovado, panela, piloncillo, jaggery and other natural dark brown sugars have been minimally centrifuged or not at all. Typically these sugars are made in smaller factories or “cottage industries” in developing nations, where they are produced with traditional practices that do not make use of industrialized vacuum evaporators or centrifuges. They are commonly boiled in open pans, upon wood fired stoves until the sugar cane juice reaches approximately 30% of the former volume and sucrose crystallization begins. They are then poured into molds to solidify or onto cooling pans where they are beaten or worked vigorously to produce a granulated brown sugar. In some countries, such as Mauritius or the Philippines, a natural brown sugar called muscovado is produced by partially centrifuging the evaporated and crystallizing cane juice to create a sugar-crystal rich mush, which is allowed to drain under gravity to produce varying degrees of molasses content in the final product. This process approximates a slightly modernized practice introduced in the 19th century to generate a better quality of natural brown sugar. A similar Japanese version of uncentrifuged natural cane sugar is called kokuto. This is a regional specialty of Okinawa and is often sold in the form of large lumps. It is sometimes used to make shochu.