Simple syrup calculator.

How much sugar for simple syrup

Simple syrup is sugar dissolved in water. Wikipedia gives the ratio as 1:1 by volume for normal simple syrup and up to 2:1 for rich simple syrup, with a saturation limit for sucrose of about 5:1 by mass. That figure is not a room-temperature limit: Wikipedia’s Sucrose page lists a solubility of 2.01 g/mL at 20 °C, so a syrup richer than roughly 2:1 may crystallise once it cools, and the tool does not model temperature. For a volume ratio this tool converts cups of water to cups of sugar using King Arthur’s 198 g per cup for granulated white sugar. In weight mode the ratio is grams of sugar per gram of water, and water is taken as about 1 g per mL.

Worked example. 1 cup of water at 1:1 by volume needs 1 cup of sugar, 198 g. The syrup weighs 435 g and is 45.6% sugar by weight. At 2:1 (rich) the same cup of water takes 396 g of sugar, for 633 g of syrup at 62.6% sugar. The finished volume ends up larger than the water alone because the sugar adds volume, so measure the water, not the target yield.