BACKGROUND: Untreated beet molasses feeding strategy was developed for recombinant thermostable glucose isomerase (GI) production by sucrose-utilizing Escherichia coli W. RESULTS: pRSETA::xylA plasmid carrying GI encoding gene of Thermus thermophilus (xylA) was transferred into E. coli W, and the effects of carbon sources, i.e. glucose, sucrose, and beet molasses containing 50% sucrose, on GI production were investigated. 32 g L −1 beet molasses-based medium resulted in the highest recombinant GI production (A = 4364.1 U L −1 ) and cell concentration (C X = 4.2 g L −1 ) in laboratory-scale shake-bioreactors. Using beet molasses as the carbon source, pulse and exponential feeding strategies were designed. The highest recombinant GI production was achieved as 35 265 U L −1 at t = 16 h in V = 3.0 L controlled bioreactors, where the cell concentration was C X = 17 g L −1 , by the application of a three-stage strategy: Stage I (0