Effect of Moisture Content on The Melting Points of Different Sugar Types

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine if the moisture content of various sugar types— white, brown, icing, and coconut sugar, affects their respective melting points. Research methods for this study consisted of acquiring mean moisture contents of the four sugar types from literature, followed by using a kitchen oven to test at what temperature the various sugar types melt at. Icing sugar was found to have the highest mean moisture content, followed by brown sugar, coconut sugar and lastly, white sugar. We proposed that sugar with higher moisture content will have a lower melting point. With that said, icing sugar will have the lowest melting point, followed by brown, coconut, and then white sugar. From this study, the melting points of each type of sugar were found to be 368.7°F (white sugar), 340.0°F (brown sugar), 350.0°F (icing sugar), and 306.7°F (coconut sugar). Using linear regression analysis to identify a relationship between moisture content and the melting points of the sugar types, a p-value of 0.53 was obtained, which was greater than the significance value of 0.05. This indicated that there was no statistically significant correlation between moisture content and the melting point of the sugar types. Thus, it cannot be concluded that moisture content is correlated to the melting point of the different sugar types. Potential reasons for this may be due to both the moisture content of each sugar type being very low and not different enough from each other.