The article describes a food additive (dye) simple sugar color (E150a), its use, effect on the body, harm and benefit, composition, consumer reviews
Other names of the additive: caramel I - plain, plain caramel, sugar color i, caramel color i, E150a, E-150a, E-150a

Functions performed

dye

Legality of use

Ukraine EU Russia

Simple sugar color, E150a - what is it?

Simple sugar color (E150a) is a safe food additive obtained by thermal decomposition of sugar. The process takes place in several stages, it is reduced to hydrolysis (inversion) of sucrose, isomerization, dehydration and polycondensation of the obtained products. As a result, a multicomponent mixture is formed, containing both small molecules of monosaccharides, oxymethylfurfural, and large ones - caramelan, caramel and caramel. If the original sucrose molecule and the resulting caramelan contain 12 carbon atoms, then caramelan consists of 35 carbon atoms, and caramelin has 24 carbon atoms.

In nature, the process of splitting and caramelization does not occur. Natural products contain whole monosaccharides, oligo- and polysaccharides.

In industry, the reaction is most often carried out in a neutral or acidified solution. Sucrose breaks down easily. If you leave hot sweet tea with lemon for a while and then analyze it, it is safe to say that most of the sucrose has already undergone hydrolysis.

Dry sugar can be caramelized. This method is familiar to people of a respectable age, who made lollipops at home in their post-war childhood. By the way, cockerels on a stick known to young people from films were also received by caramelization of sucrose. Without the addition of dyes, they were brown.

Simple sugar color, E150a - effect on the body, harm or benefit?

In the human body, simple sugar color is gradually destroyed by enzymes. As a result, simple sugars and their derivatives are formed. The original simple sugar color and its transformation products, if ingested in reasonable quantities, are not harmful. With the abuse of products with food additive E150a, unpleasant sensations may appear in the digestive tract. There are several reasons for this. First, overstraining the enzymatic system with the need to dispose of unexpected products in large quantities. Secondly, a large amount of glucose provokes additional stress on the pancreas.

Food additive E150a, simple sugar color - use in food

Simple sugar color is allowed everywhere. It is used for coloring drinks, confectionery and bakery products, jellies, jams. E150a additive is widely used to improve the presentation of culinary products. This dye can create a wide range of colors and shades: from yellowish to dark brown. The color is determined by the concentration of the food additive.

Sugar color, or E150 additive, is a food coloring that dissolves in water. In everyday life, it is known as burnt sugar and is used in the manufacture of confectionery. It tastes like caramel, slightly bitter, and smells of burnt sugar. The color of the tint can be from light yellow to brown.

Kohler has been used for a long time. This is one of the oldest dyes. The additive is found in almost every type of industrial product: chocolate, sweets, black bread, alcohol, dough and many others.

Why do you need a supplement?

The main function of the natural sugar color dye is to color the products. But the E150 additive has another purpose as well. It is added to soft drinks as an emulsifier - it prevents the formation of flakes and clouding of the product. Light-protecting substances prevent the components of the drink from oxidizing.

The dye called "sugar color" is divided into 4 classes.

The classification is based on the methods of preparation and properties of the additive:

• Additive E150a (I). This is a simple caramel that is obtained by thermal processing of carbohydrates. In this case, third-party substances are not used;
• Additive E150b (II). It is made using alkaline sulfite technology;
• Additive E150c (III). This caramel is produced using ammonia technology;
• Additive E150d (IV). It can be made using ammonia-sulphite technology.

The preparation of E150 sugar color is called "caramelization". Alkalis, salts and acids are present during processing. The main component in the manufacture is fructose, dextrose, sucrose, molasses, starch - all sweeteners are inexpensive and affordable.

Sulfurous, phosphoric, acetic, citric, sulfuric acids can be used as acids. Sodium, ammonium, calcium, potassium act as alkali.

Depending on which reagents are used, the dye charge can be negative or positive. To avoid the formation of a precipitate, it is important to select the correct class of dye. For this, the physicochemical characteristics of the product are taken into account.

Features of use

Natural dye has microbiological stability - it is produced at high temperature values, and the density does not allow microorganisms to develop.

Glucose is obtained from wheat, malt syrup is obtained from barley, and lactose is obtained from milk. This explains why color can cause allergic reactions. All people who have a reaction to these substances should be wary of the additive - the sugar color can harm them.

If the sulfite method is used, sulfites or traces of sulfites may be present in the final product. However, this figure is very small and rarely causes allergies. Therefore, its presence is not always indicated on the packaging.

The JECFA organization has determined that 160-220 mg / kg of body weight can be consumed per day, depending on which class the supplement belongs to. E150a is considered safe for the body, therefore its daily dose is not regulated.

Is there a color scheme in cognac?

Ordinary cognac is made from alcohol that has been aged for 2-3 years. For this drink to be called branded, the aging must be at least 5 years. There is a special technology, alcohols are blended. But the composition of cognac includes not only alcohols.

The label must state that the drink contains water, sugar color and syrup. Sugar color is present in cognac in order to give it an intense color. Almost all manufacturers add it.

If the drink is prepared without this additive, it is easy to "declassify" it. Cognac will have a light, yellowish tint, unsaturated and shallow. As a rule, this scares off the buyer, so such drinks are rare.

The color scheme production technology is very complex, problematic preparation requires some experience and includes the following main stages:

The additive gives a rich color, but does not affect the taste and aroma. In addition, it is found in small quantities in cognac.

Kohler is widely used in the food industry to make unattractive and unappetizing products marketable.

Thanks to him, they look bright, lively and interesting. E150 belongs to a safe class, so there is no need to be afraid of this additive, it will not harm your health.

To distinguish homemade alcohol from factory alcohol, you do not need to have rich experience - unclear moonshine almost always does not smell very pleasant even after cleaning.

Berry moonshine can be drunk without modification, but beet, potato, or corn drinks should be “podrikhtovat” in order to soften the aroma and improve the look.

Sugar color, that is, caramel, is one of the most affordable tools for ennobling homemade alcohol.

Lollipops and colorful candy canes in beautiful boxes are definitely remembered by middle-aged people. However, representatives of the chupa-chups generation are also aware - all candies are made from molten sugar. An idea that is simple to genius seems to be eternal, in any case, in the Middle Ages, caramel was already a familiar delicacy for the poor and the rich.

Lollipops are boiled sugar, made them from water, sugar and vinegar or citric acid... The mixture was simmered until thickened and allowed to solidify in molds. Undercooked lollipop is similar to toffee, and burnt candy is good for coughing and can paint over various edible substances.

Sugar color depends on the degree of "roasting" and concentration, it can be used to color, for example, tea, compote or cream. We are interested in aesthetics, so let's focus on burnt sugar in alcohol.

Caramel is added to the moonshine at the very end of its preparation, mainly for color. The noble brown color scheme gives the handmade alcohol an external resemblance to cognac or whiskey. If moonshine is well purified and prepared from high-quality raw materials with strict adherence to technology, it will acquire an interesting taste. By the way, caramel is added even to expensive French cognacs for color and aroma.

Kohler does not make alcohol sweet, does not fade over time and colors not only strong drinks, it can be used to improve home-made beer and wine.

Dye preparation technology

The minimum of ingredients and their availability give the impression of ease of preparation. It is, but the process requires attention and adherence to some rules. The essence of the method lies in the uniform dissolution of sugar, during the transformation it melts, turns brown and acquires a characteristic taste and smell.

At home, color can be prepared in two ways:

• Wet - with the dissolution of sugar in water and thickening of the syrup.
• Dry - heating granulated sugar in a dry frying pan. This method is more difficult, but the result is better.

The choice of method depends on the purpose - if required, the caramel can be light, for color you need burnt sugar.

Find a dish with a thick bottom to make the color scheme.

Wet method

Ingredients:

• Half a glass of granulated sugar.
• 130 mg of pure water.
• Half a glass of moonshine.
• Lemon acid .

Several crystals of citric acid are needed for a uniform consistency.

Preparation:

1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and 100 ml of water.
2. Heat to a boil.
3. After bubbles appear, reduce heat to low and continue to boil the syrup with constant stirring. Gradually, the sugar will begin to darken, you need not to miss the moment and not let it burn.
4. Maintain the temperature around 190 ° C, when heated above 200 ° C, the sugar will overheat, cloud the moonshine or make it black.
5. Remove the saucepan from the stove when the color of the syrup resembles medium-strength tea. It takes about 15 minutes from the appearance of bubbles to the desired color.
6. Wait until the caramel has cooled to 20 ° C and becomes thick.
7. Pour in a few crystals of citric acid and pour in the moonshine. Stir until completely dissolved, if the caramel does not dissolve well, heat it over low heat for a couple of minutes. be careful - strong alcohol in a saucepan! Small pieces of frozen sugar may remain at the bottom of the syrup; you should not fight this.
8. Pour some water (up to 30 ml) into the syrup to reduce the strength.
9. Pour the finished color scheme into a glass container, you can chop off caramel crumbs from the bottom and send them to the color scheme too.

The finished concentrated dye is black and has a slight caramel smell. Store it in a sealed container, not necessarily in the refrigerator - sugar will not spoil. It is difficult to determine the amount of concentrate for painting, add a few drops to the moonshine, stir and wait 5 minutes until the color appears.

Dry method

Sucrose darkens at a temperature exceeding the melting mark - + 180‒200 o C. When decomposing, sucrose forms caramel and loses water, the color depends on the melting point and the degree of dehydration.

If you do not delve into chemistry, we can conclude that sugar darkens and hardens when heated - this is the basis of the principle of dry caramelization. It is more difficult to obtain a product by the dry method than by the wet method, but it is ideal for painting over moonshine.

1. Preheat tall, high-rimmed metal, non-Teflon, crockery.
2. Reduce heat and add a few tablespoons of granulated sugar. Stir.
3. Soon the sugar will begin to melt and bubble. Stir with a long-handled wooden spatula until the color turns tan.
4. Line a flat tray or plate with foil in two layers.
5. Pour the melted sugar and let it spread in a thin layer over the entire surface.
6. As it cools, the sugar will harden. Use a knife to mark squares on a semi-soft mass. This is necessary to make it easier to break off the pieces after complete solidification.

Adding caramel to moonshine

Do not overdo it with sugar in the moonshine, add a little and wait 10 minutes for the color to stabilize. Excess burnt sugar alters the taste of alcohol, but does not improve it.

Burnt Sugar Syrup

For each liter of moonshine, three drops of caramel are enough, if you want the color to be darker, add two more drops.

Dry caramel

Break off a couple of squares and fill them with a small amount of boiling water, stir. Not only moonshine can be tinted with a brown liquid, it is successfully added to broths, sweets, etc.

Burnt sugar is a food supplement E-150 (1). If there is another number in brackets, it means that a synthetic analogue has been added that has coloring properties, but without the caramel taste.

27.04.2018

When the distillate is aged in barrels, distillers are often faced with the problem of the color of the drink, not everyone is satisfied with the light straw color characteristic of whiskey, rum or calvados from a barrel in which another drink was previously matured. The resources of the barrel are gradually depleted, and if the taste and smell are transferred to the drink in the required amount, then the color often remains quite pale.

In commercial production, this issue is a common thing and it is solved with the help of a color scheme, which is added even to very noble drinks made from cognac or grain alcohols of a very long aging period.

On the reverse side of such drinks, the content of the e150a dye is indicated. The "a" index says that the dye is made of sugar without the addition of third-party ingredients and a small amount of it will not damage the taste and aroma characteristics of the drink, but will affect the color, make it deeper and darker. Look at the bottles in your home bar and you will surely find the presence of this ingredient on your favorite drinks.

Why not try to make it yourself, especially since we had several samples, which would not hurt to slightly adjust the color for a couple of tones.

For the manufacture of the color scheme, we took 150 grams of regular sugar and 150 ml of water.

Stir sugar in water until syrup and began to heat it intensively, evaporating the water. At this stage, white small bubbles are on the surface of the syrup.

After a significant amount of water has evaporated, the bubbles increase and the syrup begins to darken.

Here you need to be careful, since the caramelization temperature should be about 190-200 degrees, and above this temperature, the sugar begins to burn. Burnt sugar in the color scheme will give unnecessary bitterness and may also cloud the drink.

By the way, we could not stand the syrup in the specified range and for a few minutes the temperature exceeded 200 degrees, while we smelled the smell of burnt sugar.

After reaching the temperature range, we monitor the color of the syrup and after it turns dark brown, we stop heating and leave the syrup to cool down to 60-70 degrees.

After cooling down, add 100-150 ml of an alcoholic drink to it, which we plan to tint in the future. We added whiskey, but this color can probably be used for bourbon as well.

Try not to miss a moment with the temperature, as at a higher temperature there is a danger of ignition of alcohol, and at a lower temperature, the syrup becomes too hard and it will be extremely difficult to dissolve it in alcohol. It took us about 30 minutes to mix and this would probably be the longest procedure in the production process.

After the caramel has dissolved, it is recommended to lower the color with water. We did not quite understand why this should be done, but we added 100 ml of water.

This completed the production process, we received about 180 ml of the dye. This color can be stored for a long time, the caramel dissolved in alcohol does not crystallize and the syrup remains liquid.

To test this syrup, we took

500 ml corn bourbon 65% ABV, aged for about 1 month on medium roasted oak cubes,

500 ml smoked malt whiskey, ABV 42%, aged in a medium toasted oak barrel for 6 months

500 ml of ordinary clean drinking water

When using food coloring e150a, dosages of 1-3 ml per 1 liter of drink are recommended, we took 1 ml per half liter.

When adding a dye to alcoholic beverages, we noticed a slight color change; it did not change dramatically, but acquired a deeper shade. In our opinion, the addition of color did not affect the taste and smell, the original taste and aromatic characteristics of these drinks were quite strong.

When we added the dye to the control flask with water, we noticed a significant color change, based on this change, we can judge what effect the color really has on drinks already dyed with oak. In the smell of water, we did not catch any extra notes, but in the taste they were quite a bit, but they appeared, we felt subtle shades of prunes and dried cherries.

Summing up, in our opinion, such a colorant can be used if your drink really requires a deeper and darker color, it does not give any additional noticeable taste or aroma notes with its reasonable use. Moreover, you do not need to be afraid of using it, if you prepared the color scheme yourself, this is quite consistent with the idea of \u200b\u200bcraft drinks, like those made with your own hands, with soul and imagination.

You can see in more detail the process of preparation and testing of such a dye on our channel.

Additive E150 (Sugar color), better known in everyday life as caramel or burnt sugar, is a water-soluble food coloring. E150 dye is a more oxidized caramel than the one used in sweets and confectionery. E150 additive has a burnt sugar smell and a slightly bitter taste. The color of E150 dye varies from light yellow and amber to dark brown.

Although the main function of the caramel color is food coloring, the E150 additive also has a number of additional functions. In soft drinks, E150 color acts as an emulsifier to inhibit cloudiness and flake formation. This is facilitated by the light-protective properties of the additive, which prevent the oxidation of the taste components of beverages.

The Joint FAO / WHO Expert Group on Food Additives (JECFA) divides caramel color into 4 classes, depending on the method of preparation and physical properties. You can get a detailed description, as well as the peculiarities of obtaining and using each class of caramel color, at the links below.

Thus, today the following types of E150 dye are used in the food industry:

• sugar color I (additive E150a) - simple caramel obtained by thermal processing of carbohydrates without the use of third-party substances;
• sugar color II (additive E150b) - caramel obtained by alkaline sulfite technology;
• sugar color III (additive E150c) - caramel color obtained by ammonia technology;
• sugar color IV (additive E150d) - caramel obtained by ammonia-sulphite technology.

Additive E150 is obtained by thermal treatment of carbohydrates, mainly in the presence of acids, alkalis or salts. The process of obtaining the E150 dye is called caramelization. However, caramel is made from inexpensive and readily available nutritional sweeteners. Fructose, dextrose (glucose), invert sugar, sucrose, malt syrup, molasses, starch are used as the main component in the production of E150 dye. In the role of acids that can be used in the production of caramel dye, sulfuric, sulfurous, phosphoric, acetic and citric acids are used. In the alkaline method of obtaining additive E150, alkalis of ammonium, sodium, potassium and calcium are used. In addition, when obtaining a caramel color, hydroxides and salts of ammonium, sodium and potassium (carbonates, bicarbonates, phosphates, sulfates, bisulfites) can also be used.

Caramel color molecules can have a positive or negative residual charge, depending on the reagents used in its production. Therefore, in order to avoid problems such as sediment or clouding of food products, it is necessary to correctly select the class of caramel dye, depending on the acidity and other physicochemical characteristics of the food.

Sugar color has high microbiological stability. Since the E150 dye is produced at very high temperatures and has a high substance density, it does not support the development of microorganisms.

Influence on the body

Harm

E150 caramel color can cause allergic reactions in a small part of consumers. However, this is primarily due to the products from which this food additive is obtained. Wheat-derived glucose, barley-derived malt syrup, and milk-derived lactose may themselves be allergens. Thus, persons susceptible to allergies to these types of products should also avoid food products using the "Sugar Color" dye.

During the production of E150 additive by the sulfite method, the final product may contain traces of sulfites. However, this figure is less than 10 parts per million, therefore, it is not necessary to place warnings on the product packaging about a possible allergic reaction to the dye components.

The international organization JECFA has established the permissible daily intake (ADI) of the food coloring E150 at the level of 160 to 200 mg / kg of body weight, depending on the class of the dye. For food additive E150a (sugar color of the 1st class), the permissible daily rate is not regulated due to its safety for the body.

In 2010, the international chemical safety organization IPCS concluded that commercially produced caramel color has the same toxicological properties as homemade caramel. The only exceptions are dyes, in the preparation of which ammonium is used (additives E150c and E150d). The organization IPCS also confirmed in the course of its research that sugar color is not a carcinogen and a mutagen.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies the E150 supplement as safe and exempts from mandatory certification.

Benefit

Despite the relative "harmlessness" of the caramel dye, data on any positive effect of the E150 supplement on the human body has not yet been obtained.

Using

Sugar color is one of the oldest and most widely used food colors. E150 additive is found in almost every type of food industry product (dough, beer, black bread, rolls, chocolate, cookies, spirits and liqueurs, creams, fillings, potato chips, desserts and many others).

Legislation

Caramel color is approved for consumption in most countries of the world. At the same time, in a number of countries there are restrictions on the use of E150 dye in the food industry. E150 additive is approved for use in the food industry in Russia and Ukraine.