ᐅ How to Store Sugar (White, Brown, Powdered, Muscovado)

Sugar is the most used sweetener in the world, especially refined white sugar, to prepare desserts or sweeten a drink, and this may sound very obvious, but what is not are the guidelines to store sugar.

Sugar in all its presentations should be put inside an airtight container and stored in a dry and cool place. This way, refined white sugar can last about two years at room temperature.

To know how to preserve sugar properly, you just have to continue reading.

How to preserve sugar?

Sugar is a widely used ingredient, especially in pastries. The most refined variant is the most commonly used and known as granulated white sugar.

But we can also find brown sugar, icing sugar, and other sweeteners that meet the same objective as refined sugar.

Generally, sugar comes in plastic or paper packaging, which can preserve the sugar well if they do not have any holes. However, after opening the sugar, it is best to transfer the remaining contents to a container with a lid.

Here are some tips for storing sugar at room temperature:

Step 1: Use an airtight container.

It can be plastic or glass. It should be clean and completely dry.

Step 2: Pour the sugar into the container.

Pour all the sugar into the container and proceed to cover well.

Step 3: Tag.

Although this may not be necessary since sugar is an ingredient used a lot and usually runs out soon, it never hurts to know how long a food has been stored.

Step 4: Store in a dry place.

The place where you will put the container with sugar should not be wet; it has to be cool and, if possible, dark.

Refined sugar can be at room temperature for two years and the same as the rest of the sweeteners. In fact, you can store sugar indefinitely if it is well covered. [1]

For its part, icing sugar, being a powder, the estimated shelf life is 18 months. [2]

Sometimes, if the sugar is exposed to a bit of moisture, it can form lumps that you can easily disrupt.

I don’t recommend storing the sugar inside the refrigerator due to the humidity that this appliance generates and, therefore, could harden all the sugar, making it more difficult to use.

Can sugar be frozen? Sugar technically does not freeze, as it has no water content. Also, the freezer does not extend the shelf life of sugar, so it is not an effective storage method for sugar.

How to preserve brown sugar?

Brown sugar is a little wetter than white sugar; for this reason, the shelf life is considerably reduced since this sugar tends to crystallize after you store it for a long time.

You can store it in the same way as refined sugar, which is inside an airtight container at room temperature in a cool and dry place to keep it in good condition for about four months. [3]

It could last much longer in practice, but you must constantly review it. A recommendation might be to stir it from time to time to aerate it a little and then close it; that way, the formation of thick crystals that are difficult to dissolve would be avoided.

But you must not dry out the brown sugar too much because it could lose its characteristic flavor.

Does sugar get bad?

Sugar is kept almost indefinitely due to the low humidity it contains. As a result, when a bacterium infects a grain of sugar, it absorbs all the water, if it has at all, so soon after, it dies from dehydration.

However, sugar is a product that attracts many insects or vermin, so you should always pass the sugar to resistant airtight containers, which isolate it completely.

But if you notice that your sugar has many insects, it is best to throw it away. Eating the sugar if the package contains strange tears is also not advisable since it could come from a rat or another vermin.

Water is also not a friend of sugar since, in large quantities, it dilutes it, and in small amounts, it causes it to crystallize and begin to form clumps.

How long does sugar last?

Sugar has a long shelf life, and below I leave a table of the sugar shelf life.

Product	Duration
Refined white sugar at room temperature	2 years
Brown sugar at room temperature	4 months
Icing sugar at room temperature	18 months
Other sweeteners at room temperature	2 years

What is the best way to preserve sugar?

The only way to preserve sugar is to store it in an airtight container at room temperature, in a cool, moisture-free place. Refined white sugar, icing sugar, and other sweeteners remain in good condition in the same way for a long time.

If you want to learn how to preserve some other products, I will give you other articles to keep reading on.