page_title: Caramelization
section_title: Process
hierarchical_section_title: Caramelization / Process
context_page_description: Caramelization is the browning of sugar, a process used extensively in cooking for the resulting sweet nutty flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: caramelans, caramelens, and caramelins. As the process occurs, volatile chemicals such as diacetyl are released, producing the characteristic caramel flavor.
  Like the Maillard reaction, caramelization is a type of non-enzymatic browning. Unlike the Maillard reaction, caramelization is pyrolytic, as opposed to being a reaction with amino acids.
  When caramelization involves the disaccharide sucrose, it is broken down into the monosaccharides fructose and glucose.
context_section_description: Caramelization is a complex, poorly understood process that produces hundreds of chemical products, and includes the following types of reactions:
  equilibration of anomeric and ring forms
  sucrose inversion to fructose and glucose
  condensation reactions
  intramolecular bonding
  isomerization of aldoses to ketoses
  dehydration reactions
  fragmentation reactions
  unsaturated polymer formation
caption: Mirepoix (carrots, onions, and celery) being caramelized
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