What holds sugar cubes together?

by canadianhelper on February 14th, 2007

Dry granulated sugar passes along a special conveyor, water is sprayed onto the sugar and it is thoroughly mixed as it passes along the conveyor. The wet sugar contains about 1% water and is quite sticky at this stage.To make the cubes the moist sugar is pressed into rows of moulds which are arranged around the outside of a circular drum. As the drum rotates the wet cubes are pushed out onto a moving conveyor belt. This then moves along under a series of infra red drying lamps where the cubes are dried. This is all enclosed in a kind of tunnel often called the 'drying tunnel'.When the dry cubes emerge from the end of the drying tunnel they are picked up using matching rows of rubber suction cups, and placed into boxes and cartons. There is still a tiny amount of water left in the cubes so they are left for a few days to 'condition', to dry out thoroughly before final wrapping.

Cubes were first reported to have been made by a Belgian in 1890 who made them by spreading dampened sugar into a large slab and sawing it into individual squares.

Source: http://www.britishsugar.co.uk/IsolatedStorage/94175874-67b5-4c33-9f38-380233f14049/RenderSystem/Gateway/Core/RVE19cc85a13ade479bbfccf859d63ddef8,,.aspx#q5