Alcademics

Category: sweeteners

  • Sugar Spirit: What is Sugarcane?

    SugarSpiritLogoSquare1 In the Sugar Spirit project, we're going to look at sugar's history and production, but first we should establish what sugar and sugarcane are. 

    Sugar and Sucrose

    When we talk about sugar, we mean table sugar, or sucrose. 

    To chemists, sugar refers to a class of 'edible crystalline carbohydrates' that also includes fructose and lactose. But most of us aren't chemists so we won't use the word 'sucrose' so much as just 'sugar.'

    Except for now: Sucrose occurs in all green plants. It is a plant food manufactured photosynthetically from carbon dioxide and water.

    For table sugar, the plants harvested to make it are sugarcane and sugar beets. We'll get to sugar beets later.

    Zacapa sugar cane field harvest demo
    (Sugarcane harvest demo in Guatemala.)

    Sugarcane

    Sugarcane is a large grass of the family Gramineae. There are six known species. 

    The most widely grown is saccharum officinarum, which depending on your source is called “noble cane” or “sugar of the apothecaries.” Its stalks that grow as thick as two inches, and 12-15 feet high.

    Sugarcane is a subtropical and tropical crop requiring large amount of water and labor. In farming, it is propagated asexually from cuttings of the stem. It becomes ripe in the dry season after anywhere from 6 to 18 months depending on the climate. 

    In the next post, we'll begin to look at the spread of sugarcane from the Indian Subcontinent to the rest of the world. 

     

    The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

     

  • Announcing the Sugar Spirit Project

    SugarSpiritLogoSquare1 Today marks the launch of the second Sponsored Project on Alcademics: The Sugar Spirit. The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. 

    Rum is made from any sugarcane derivative and is the real sugar spirit, but in this research project I'll primarily be studying sugar itself.

    In writing about cocktails, we often come across recipes calling for different forms of sugar: demerara, muscovado, evaporated organic cane, superfine, etc. I've wanted to study the differences in those sugars for quite a while now so I'm thankful to Bacardi Rum for giving me the support to do so. 

    Along the way, I'll be looking at the history of sugarcane, its byproducts (including molasses, of course), modern and historical production methods, forms and uses, and much more. 

    I've put up an outline of future topics for discussion and experimentation. The outline is on the project index page, which can be reached by following this link or clicking the Sugar Spirit project logo above from any blog page you see it on. 

    This is going to get pretty nerdy, and I know that's how you like it. 

     

    The Sugar Spirit Project is sponsored by Bacardi Rum. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

  • The New Sweet

    Sweet-cocktails_ld The story on cocktail sweeteners I wrote for the April/May issue of Fine Cooking magazine is now online. 

    You can read it here. 

  • Fine Cocktails in Fine Cooking Magazine

    I have a story in the new March/April issue of Fine Cooking magazine. It's about the variety of ways to sweeten cocktails with raw sugars, maple syrup, agave, honey, etc.

    FineCookingMarchAprilCover

    Pick up a copy to find a Mamie Taylor variation with evaporated organic cane sugar by Thad Vogler of Bar Agricole in San Francisco, an agave-sweetened refresher from Ted Kilgore of Taste by Niche in St. Louis, and a honey champagne bittered mojito variation from yours truly.  

    I hope to blog some more information on various types of raw sugars I learned about while researching the story, as it might be useful. I was on the phone to sugar scientists conducting interviews for a couple hours and it turns out it's pretty hard to describe exact differences in any meaningful way. But I'll try when I get the chance.

    In the meantime, run screaming to your local newsstand to pick up the new copy of Fine Cooking!

  • The Science of Sweet in the San Francisco Chronicle

    Here is my latest story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

    less sweet drink by darcy
    (A Gin-to-the-fire cocktail was photographed in the SF Chronicle studio on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009 in San Francisco, Calf. Photo: Mike Kepka / The Chronicle)

    Sweetening drinks can be a science

    Camper English, Special to The Chronicle

    Friday, January 8, 2010

    Gin that bruises, 500-year-old secret recipes and miracle hangover cures. The world of cocktails is rife with myths and misinformation. As we slowly move out of the Dark Ages and into the cocktail Enlightenment, bartenders are starting to use scientific methodology to disprove hearsay and improve drinks.

    Some of that science will be explained Jan. 20 at the Exploratorium. A one-night event (sold out, though the Web site promises to share details for home experiments) will include exhibits on the science behind layering a pousse-café, why absinthe turns white when water is added and how cocktails are affected by the shape of ice.

    Having experimented with ice in recent years, many bartenders have moved on to studying sugar. Simple syrup is used to balance acid in many cocktails, so several curious bar types have purchased refractometers and pH meters to measure exact levels of each.

    Read the whole story on the science of sweetening drinks here.

  • Simple Syrup: It’s Good to be Rich

    This post lists the spoilage times for different simple syrups. You can use it to determine how long until simple syrup will spoil. 

    Simple syrup is never just that simple. Some people make it 1:1 sugar to water. Others make it 2:1, and call it "rich simple syrup."

    One-to-one simple syrup is easy to make- put equal amounts sugar and water in a bottle and shake it up. No heat is necessary. For rich simple syrup if you shake and wait and shake and wait you can get it into solution without heat, but most people heat up the water first on the stove and the sugar dissolves almost instantly (but then you have to wait for it to cool before using). Either way, you need to plan for it.

    So why would anyone bother with rich simple syrup? Because you can use less of it in a drink to get the same amount of sweetening, but more importantly it lasts longer before spoiling in your refrigerator.

    Syrupjars

    To test this, I made up four syrups and decided to wait to see how long it was until they spoiled. For each ratio, I added a tablespoon of vodka, as this is another method of making syrup last longer before spoiling.

    • 1:1 simple syrup
    • 1:1 simple syrup plus one tablespoon vodka 
    • 2:1 rich simple syrup
    • 2:1 rich simple syrup plus one tablespoon vodka

    Then I put them all in the refrigerator and waited. Eventually, the syrup would become cloudy then that cloudiness would start to mold. I stopped the experiment when the cloudiness appeared.

    Results:

    • 1:1 simple syrup lasted One Month
    • 1:1 simple syrup plus one tablespoon vodka lasted Three Months
    • 2:1 rich simple syrup lasted Six Months
    • 2:1 rich simple syrup plus one tablespoon vodka lasted more than six months

    So depending on how fast you go through simple syrup you may want to adjust the syrup that you make. Of course, you'll have to go back and adjust all your drink recipes too.