Here's a famous thread on the subject: 20 pounds of sugar and a jar of yeast nutrient.
Invert Sugar and Candy Sugar
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ctkach
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Thanks Frazier... awesome stuff!
Synovia
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Have you ever tested tap water for NO2/No3? There's plenty.
We're both in Chicago and there's actually not much in the way of nitrates/ites in our water in order to promote the vigorous and complete Maillard reactions that one looks for when making dark candi sugar. Just check out the city's water quality reports from 2006-2009. http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/water/supp_info/water_quality_resultsandreports/comprehensive_chemicalanalysis.html
I don't think measurements of less than 0.5mg/L nitrates and less than the measurement threshold for nitrite of 0.02mg/L in each quarter of the past 4 years qualifies as "plenty" of these chemicals. I don't mean to bust your chops, but simple tap water will not do the trick, no matter where you live.
NatureNurd
Member
I agree that boiling sucrose in the low pH of the wort will allow for inversion over a long boil, thus negating a need to invert before hand. However, I do see a very clear case where preparing invert sugar outside of the boil could be of use.
The extreme temperatures and lack of amino acids in the process of inverting sucrose with citric acid and H2O will allow for the hydrolysis to occur with little to no simultaneous maillard reactions. This can produce a very clear invert sugar syrup of fructose and glucose easily fermented by yeast.
Here is the scenario where I see this being an advantage. If the brewer is interested in a high original gravity wort for a very light colored beer, they will not want to boil the sucrose for long, else fearing unwanted maillard reactions occurring. The brewer may also want a fast fermentation process to occur to avoid the formation of diacetyl, higher/fusel alcohol, ester, and volatile sulfur compounds. Inverted sugars allow the brewer to reach both of these goals with one addition late in the boil.
If I could add a condition to your comment, it would be that any brewer that is interested in adding sucrose to a darker beer can probably get away with adding it to the boil early on to provide the benefits of monosaccharides in the final chilled wort.
Hermit
fuddle
So this Chocolate Stout recipe I'm trying to make calls for 8oz. Invert Sugar (along with 4oz. cane) What do you recommend I use for the Invert? Make my own? Lyle's Golden Syrup? Substitute Sugar In the Raw? I've heard or read a lot of opinions. Can anyone recommend one in particular, from experience?
And lastly, if I am to make my own, do I just use regular, white table sugar?
And lastly, if I am to make my own, do I just use regular, white table sugar?
I'd highly recommend making your own. I use cheap C&H sugar from the grocery store. I bet 1 cup sugar, 1.5 cups water and a pinch of citric acid would be more than 8oz. Just boil it till it gets ever so slightly thick but not quite golden. It continues to darken after you take it off the fire so if you want to make perfect golden syrup you might have to practice a few times.
Awesome, thanks! I'll give it a try tonight and let you know in about a month! So am I correct in assuming that the main purpose for including this invert sugar is to up the abv? what about the cain sugar? what is that in there for?
Hermit
fuddle
Going from memory. Inverting sugar makes it easier for the yeast to digest. When they have to split table sugar they make compounds like acetaldehyde. They can reabsorb it later if you leave it on the yeast long enough. If not, you get 'green apple'.
I've added invert sugar (glucose & fructose) to the wort. And I've used plain cane sugar (sucrose) to prime bottles for carbonation without any cidery taste. But I've never used both in the wort. Sorry, but I have no clue why your recipe calls for both.
any idea how long it usually needs to boil before beginning to change color? ballpark figure?
The darkening goes way faster in an alkaline solution. Just tried making some dark sugar syrup from beet table sugar and I used about 200ml of 1% NaOH solution to promote Maillard reactions, added in batches. The sugar syrup is pitch black and I've never gone over 130°C.
As foodgrade NaOH is rather hard to find, you could try to convert some NaHCO3 (baking soda) into Na2Co3 by heating at 200°C in the oven and than using a that dissolved in water to accelerate the darkening. (just add the solution a little at a time when the sugar passes 105-110°C
As foodgrade NaOH is rather hard to find, you could try to convert some NaHCO3 (baking soda) into Na2Co3 by heating at 200°C in the oven and than using a that dissolved in water to accelerate the darkening. (just add the solution a little at a time when the sugar passes 105-110°C
SRicci
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Hi,
old discussion, I know, but someone could be interested in how the real story is, a part of it at least
I did extesive reaseaches for understanding what ligth candy sugar is and what are the differencies with inverted sugar (if there are any differencies, I suspect it is a blend of inverted and table sugar). I met some goals about the process and find many hints about the process for producing the dark one.
Only problem: it is in Italian... http://www.movimentobirra.it/public/file-caricati/MOBI_01-2013.pdf (pag. 9)
Briefly: some of you said right things. But you missed one point, I think: you cannot have ANY Maillard reaction with sucrose. That's why you have to invert table sugar to have the Maillard reaction, it works with fructose and glucose, not with sucrose. You can only caramellize sucrose. AFTER you inverted the sugar, you increase pH adding some amino acids to help the Maillard reaction, the easy way is adding ammonium bicarbonate. Under 140 C you will mainly have Maillard reaction and less Caramelization (it works above 100 C). You can play with time and temperatures to develop a good profile for you dark sugar. In my article you can find some indications about level of pH where the two reactions could be achieved (2.5-3 and 4-4.5)
Regarding the possibiliy to invert sugar during the boiling, what Denny says is not correct. Look at this graph:
http://bressanini-lescienze.blogaut...t/2008/11/19/che-cos’e-lo-zucchero-invertito/
This is the time, temperature and pH needed to invert HALF of the sugar. So putting your sugar at the start of the boil you will need 2-3 hours to invert HALF of it (and it will be darker, not optimal for a Tripel)
I do not know if there are some differencies in the flavour profile between plain and inverted (ligth) sugar: some brewers use the plain, others use the inverted, and other use the candy ligth (in Europe, for breweries, there are both the inverted and the candy). A friend of mine, brewer and great taster, said that with blind tasting candy ligth resulted better than the inverted. Anyway, in homebrewing, I use sugar inverted on my own: it is not a great effort, add citric acid, add sugar, warm up a pot, wait until it gets cold, add ammonium bicarbonate (or baking soda, it works the same for ligth candy) and that's it
old discussion, I know, but someone could be interested in how the real story is, a part of it at least
I did extesive reaseaches for understanding what ligth candy sugar is and what are the differencies with inverted sugar (if there are any differencies, I suspect it is a blend of inverted and table sugar). I met some goals about the process and find many hints about the process for producing the dark one.
Only problem: it is in Italian... http://www.movimentobirra.it/public/file-caricati/MOBI_01-2013.pdf (pag. 9)
Briefly: some of you said right things. But you missed one point, I think: you cannot have ANY Maillard reaction with sucrose. That's why you have to invert table sugar to have the Maillard reaction, it works with fructose and glucose, not with sucrose. You can only caramellize sucrose. AFTER you inverted the sugar, you increase pH adding some amino acids to help the Maillard reaction, the easy way is adding ammonium bicarbonate. Under 140 C you will mainly have Maillard reaction and less Caramelization (it works above 100 C). You can play with time and temperatures to develop a good profile for you dark sugar. In my article you can find some indications about level of pH where the two reactions could be achieved (2.5-3 and 4-4.5)
Regarding the possibiliy to invert sugar during the boiling, what Denny says is not correct. Look at this graph:
http://bressanini-lescienze.blogaut...t/2008/11/19/che-cos’e-lo-zucchero-invertito/
This is the time, temperature and pH needed to invert HALF of the sugar. So putting your sugar at the start of the boil you will need 2-3 hours to invert HALF of it (and it will be darker, not optimal for a Tripel)
I do not know if there are some differencies in the flavour profile between plain and inverted (ligth) sugar: some brewers use the plain, others use the inverted, and other use the candy ligth (in Europe, for breweries, there are both the inverted and the candy). A friend of mine, brewer and great taster, said that with blind tasting candy ligth resulted better than the inverted. Anyway, in homebrewing, I use sugar inverted on my own: it is not a great effort, add citric acid, add sugar, warm up a pot, wait until it gets cold, add ammonium bicarbonate (or baking soda, it works the same for ligth candy) and that's it
highgravitybacon
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So the real question: what is your dark candi sugar recipe?
SRicci
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something like this:
1 kg table sugar
about 0.5 lt of water
very little citric acid (say the end of a little spoon)
you should have pH 3-3.5, if you want to check (lower is not a big problem)
warm the syrup to 90-100 C
cover the pot and wait at least 1 hour
then add a very very little quantity of ammonium bicarbonate (other substaces could work, this one is cheap and easy to find for me)
pH should be 4-4.5 (higher should not be a problem, 4.5 is the value of the commercial one, the higher the value the faster the Maillard reaction, the less you can control it)
then make steps of temperature under 140 C until you reach the desired colour and flavour, for example 90-110-130 C each for 10' (you have to tune this)
highgravitybacon
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I am not finding the ammonium bicarb. What other agents work? DAP? Is it for the nitrogen you use it?
SRicci
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ammonium bicarb is used in cooking (leavening cookies). should not be impossible to find it
DAP should work too. I don't know about the ability of DAP to increase pH: if it is too low after having added DAP, you can help the Maillard reaction using very very very little baking soda
here other insights about the process and temp: http://brewery.org/brewery/library/Maillard_CS0497.html
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