How Is Sugar Beet Made In Several Steps

To reach the consumer as the sun and nature have done, the sugar stored in the heart of the plant must be extracted by eliminating, step by step, the other constituents of the plant. This extractive work mobilizes a specific know-how associated with important sugar beet processing equipment. In order to preserve all their sugar richness, sugar plants, cane and beetroot must be processed quickly. This is why sweets are located near the growing areas.

 

Firstly, the factory is supplied with beets by crops implanted in the vicinity. The net weight of the roots delivered and their sugar content are evaluated by sampling at the time of delivery. The storage time for beets is kept to a minimum to preserve their sugar content. Then, beets are brewed in a washhouse where they circulate against the current of a stream of water to separate them from the ground, the grass and the stones.

 

Afterwards, the sweet juice is extracted from the chips by diffusion. The purpose of this operation, based on the principle of osmosis, is to pass the sugar contained in the chips into water. The diffusion is carried out in a long cylinder: the cossettes penetrate through one end, and the warm water which circulates slowly in the opposite direction is gradually enriched by their sugar. The sweet juice is collected at one end.

 

The juice obtained contains all the sugar present in the beet, but also impurities which must be eliminated. The operation is carried out by calco-carbonic purification: a successive addition of milk of lime then of carbonic gas makes it possible to form insoluble salts and precipitates which fix the impurities.

 

At evaporation stage, the filtered juice contains about 15% sugar and 85% water, a large portion of which will be removed by evaporation. Boiled in pipes in contact with steam, the juice passes through a series of boilers where the temperature and pressure gradually decrease from one to the other. At the end of the circuit, the juice turned into syrup containing 65-70% sucrose.

 

The syrup ends its concentration in boilers to cook vacuum to avoid the caramelization. Very fine crystals (icing sugar) are introduced, which will inoculate the syrup. The crystallization is generalized and one obtains the massecuite, formed of multiple small crystals suspended in syrup coloured by the impurities residual.

 

Finally, the white crystallized sugar is sent to hot air dryers. Once dried, the sugar is either packaged in different packages, either directly in powder form or in pieces after moistening and moulding.