A saccharimeter is an instrument for measuring the concentration of
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
solutions.
This is commonly achieved using a measurement of
refractive index
In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is the ratio of the apparent speed of light in the air or vacuum to the speed in the medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refrac ...
(
refractometer
A refractometer is a laboratory or field device for the measurement of an Refractive index, index of refraction (refractometry). The index of refraction is calculated from the observed refraction angle using Snell's law. For mixtures, the index ...
) or the angle of rotation of
polarization
Polarization or polarisation may refer to:
Mathematics
*Polarization of an Abelian variety, in the mathematics of complex manifolds
*Polarization of an algebraic form, a technique for expressing a homogeneous polynomial in a simpler fashion by ...
of optically active sugars (
polarimeter
A polarimeter is a scientific instrument used to measure optical rotation: the angle of rotation caused by passing linearly polarized light through an Optical activity, optically active substance.
Some chemical substances are optically active, ...
).
Saccharimeters are used in
food processing
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the mak ...
industries,
brewing
Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and #Fermenting, fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with Yeast#Beer, yeast. It may be done in a brewery ...
, and the distilled alcoholic drinks industry.
{{Gallery
, align=center
, File:Saccharimeter Zucker-Museum.jpg, A saccharimeter at the
Sugar Museum (Berlin)
, File:Polarimeter Saccharimeter-UNIL 603.867-IMG 2052-black.jpg, Saccharimeter at the
EPFL Physics Museum
, File:Soleil saccharimeter-IMG 6954-gradient.jpg,
Soleil saccharimeter on display at the
Palais de la Découverte
Palais () may refer to:
* Dance hall, popularly a ''palais de danse'', in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK
* ''Palais'', French for palace
**Grand Palais, the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
**Petit Palais, an art museum in Paris
* Palais River in t ...
External links
Historical
Bates Type Saccharimeter NIST Museum object
Measuring instruments