PissyFingers
Well-Known Member
Excuse my ignorance but is Whitelabs yeast nutrient "DAP"? 
20 lb of sugar and a jar of yeast nutrient
- Thread starter SnickASaurusRex
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troglodytes
Well-Known Member
This looks great, and I'm jealous of that light version. I have never gotten that light of a color or been able to do this with 20 minutes of work. At a minimum it takes an hour to get to the light color temp for me.
Would you mind expanding on your process? What type of stove and at what heat setting are you at? Does it realistically only take 20 minutes to get the sugar to an initial temp of 250-260F? Do you pour in the full volume of water and reheat to soft ball (240F) or do you only put in enough water to drop the temp to 240F?
Sorry to bombard you with these Qs, but your final product looks better than anything I've done in 4 attempts, so I figure I must be doing something wrong.
Dcpcooks
Well-Known Member
Here are the keys to making sugar in different forms. The short answer is how you cool it down.
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/...ast-issues/archive-2014-2015/candymaking.html
Dcpcooks
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schmittychris
Member
They key (I believe) is the stirring while adding the cooling water. I stir vigorously until it hits 240 and then pour into the mason jar. The jar is heated and it cools the rest of the way slowly. There is a small layer of crystals at the bottom. Maybe 1-2mm thick.
schmittychris
Member
No worries happy to help. I use a gas stove on medium heat (4-5 out of 9). Once it hit's 260 I add water until it gets down to 240 and then take it off the stove and pour into warm mason jars. Yes it takes about 20 min. That was my second batch of light and both turned out near identical.
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
Excuse my ignorance but is Whitelabs yeast nutrient "DAP"?
I believe the primary ingredient is DAP, but it also contains other nutrients as well, so it's not 100% DAP.
schmittychris
Member
I tried the 280 version a few years ago but didn't have any DAP so used citric acid. It turned out nice but significantly darker than the pictures I have seen from others on here. It also has a very slight citrus hint which maybe from the citric acid or just normal. I would like to try make it again but I still don't have any DAP. Could I use something else? Lactic acid maybe and how much?
Thanks.
The DAP is the key for the Maillard reaction and provides a lot of the flavor. Using citric acid is a different process. 1lb bags of DAP are cheap on Amazon.
Shenanigans
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the information.
I live in Europe so we have different product availability here.
I've seen some cheap wine yeast nutrient for about 10 bucks a kilo (over 2 pounds) or 2.5 for 100g (about 3.5 oz)
I'm not sure how pure it is though.
Maybe I'll order 100g with my next online order.
troglodytes
Well-Known Member
I've got to be doing something wrong. I was excited to try the sugar #5 (twice brought to 290F) to be used in a quad. I commented in the past about how every time I make this it always comes out darker than the temp would indicate. I have used a gas stove and electric (electric this time), and never above Med (heat setting 4 out of 10).
This time when the temp had reached 290F the first time it was delicious upon taste test although about the color of snickasaurus' 300F example. I was willing to live with that since this is going to be the darkening ingredient in my quad. But once I did the water addition and brought the temp back to 290 (287F on my calibrated thermometer) it turned jet black, smelled a bit charred and had a slightly sweet flavor and hints of charcoal. All of the nuance from the original tasting at 290F were gone completely and there is no raisin/prune or coffee as there was before. Pic is provided to show just how black this stuff got (and a weird consistency as it went from gummy at 270F to runny at 290F).
Is it supposed to tasted blackened, and, once aged in a big beer mellows out or do I need to try again or just go buy some D2? I love the concept of doing this to make something from scratch as well as save a little in the process, but this is now my 5th time making it (at varying colors) and it has never come out as it should.
This time when the temp had reached 290F the first time it was delicious upon taste test although about the color of snickasaurus' 300F example. I was willing to live with that since this is going to be the darkening ingredient in my quad. But once I did the water addition and brought the temp back to 290 (287F on my calibrated thermometer) it turned jet black, smelled a bit charred and had a slightly sweet flavor and hints of charcoal. All of the nuance from the original tasting at 290F were gone completely and there is no raisin/prune or coffee as there was before. Pic is provided to show just how black this stuff got (and a weird consistency as it went from gummy at 270F to runny at 290F).
Is it supposed to tasted blackened, and, once aged in a big beer mellows out or do I need to try again or just go buy some D2? I love the concept of doing this to make something from scratch as well as save a little in the process, but this is now my 5th time making it (at varying colors) and it has never come out as it should.
I made a batch of the medium amber a few months ago and used it in a rye saison. I followed the procedure exactly, and made sure to heat slowly to prevent any burning. The resulting syrup smelled and tasted fantastic. Unfortunately, the saison I brewed with it turned out awfully bitter and burnt-tasting. I might do a small 1 gallon extract tester batch with the same syrup to see if it could be something else in my process.
cheesebach
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Were you stirring and/or turning off the heat while adding the syrup during the boil? If it looked/tasted good before you added it to the wort, I'm wondering if it could have possibly scorched when you added it in the boil.
schmittychris
Member
I've got to be doing something wrong. I was excited to try the sugar #5 (twice brought to 290F) to be used in a quad. I commented in the past about how every time I make this it always comes out darker than the temp would indicate. I have used a gas stove and electric (electric this time), and never above Med (heat setting 4 out of 10).
This time when the temp had reached 290F the first time it was delicious upon taste test although about the color of snickasaurus' 300F example. I was willing to live with that since this is going to be the darkening ingredient in my quad. But once I did the water addition and brought the temp back to 290 (287F on my calibrated thermometer) it turned jet black, smelled a bit charred and had a slightly sweet flavor and hints of charcoal. All of the nuance from the original tasting at 290F were gone completely and there is no raisin/prune or coffee as there was before. Pic is provided to show just how black this stuff got (and a weird consistency as it went from gummy at 270F to runny at 290F).
Is it supposed to tasted blackened, and, once aged in a big beer mellows out or do I need to try again or just go buy some D2? I love the concept of doing this to make something from scratch as well as save a little in the process, but this is now my 5th time making it (at varying colors) and it has never come out as it should.
I'll try and make some of the #5 to see how it turns out since I've had pretty good luck with making this stuff. I'll try and document as much as possible so we can compare. It might take me a week or so.
No, it's not supposed to taste blackened.
Possible problems here:
Elevation might affect cooking sugar like it does baking (unlikely).
Your thermometer might be off-calibration at above boiling temperatures.
Your sugar might be overcooking as it rests (if you don't cool it immediately).
Or most likely, you might be measuring a cooler part of the non-homogenous sugar mixture, so part of the sugar is cooking at 300 when you're measuring 290.
I'd suggest three possible solutions:
First, try measuring different parts of your sugar as it cooks and find which spots are hotter and which are cooler. Use the hottest spot as your current temperature.
Second, try dropping your temp targets by 10F, so instead of 2x 290F you go for 2x 280F. Worst case scenario, you get a slightly lighter sugar than you were aiming for.
Third, time your temperature targets not by temperature but by color. When your sugar reaches the color you want, cool it with water. I've done this pretty successfully doing similar caramel syrups for coffee and pancakes when I'm not using DAP and thus can't rely on the temperatures given here.
As for the blackened syrup, you can cut it with something lighter for less harshness and use it in coffee, or it might make a nice addition to a big, bad RIS (I've done it once and would recommend it).
troglodytes
Well-Known Member
I think your third suggestion is how I will go about this next time and focus on color only.
I love your idea of using this is a big RIS, but unfortunately I only have 2 carboys for aging and they are both in use. What kind of shelf life are we talking with this overdone syrup? And secondly, I had a a taste of it again last night and it has this sharp tang to it, almost like vinegar, when it first hits your tongue; then there is a little charcoal and sweetness. Is this similar to your experience when you added it to an RIS? I'd hate to make such a big beer and hope for the best and have it turn out acrid or twang-y (is that a word)?
Thanks for the advice, and I think I'll go down to my LHBS and pick up some D-180 for the quad I'm making.
It wouldn't hurt to measure multiple parts of the sugar as it's cooking anyway, even if you're cooking by color and not temperature. That might inform you as to whether or not homogeneity is a problem for your measurements and what temperatures you want to target for future batches.
I don't recall a particular acidic or vinegary taste to my burnt syrup. I think the flavor was a mix of burnt sugar, dark fruits, and caramel (in that order). I don't have solid notes, but I think I had it for several months before it went into the RIS so pretty long shelf life (in the fridge) and I believe I used a bit less than a pound of syrup in the ~4.5 gallon RIS, for maybe 6-7% of the total grainbill by weight, probably more like 10% by gravity points. I had screwy thermometer issues at the time and have no idea what my mash temperature was, but judging by the FG I think it was pretty high, and the beer benefited from it as you don't want to let this sugar dry out your RIS too much, unless you're into that sort of thing.
Doh of course. Why didn't I think of that. Did this and the flavor was wonderful and it did great things for my beer (biggest crowd pleaser of ANY beer I've made) but it was so incredibly sticky and dealing with it was very aggravating. Will add water next time.
Eyeballing a recipe for a dark beer using this stuff unlike the caramel amber I did last time for a 5 gallon batch:
-Enough 2-row to hit 1.060 OG or so.
-Pound of Deep Amber caramel.
-Half pound of carared.
-Half pound of carabrown malt (light brown malt, not crystal malt despite its stupid name, tastes like biscuit malt on steroids).
-Half pound of chocolate malt.
-Enough midnight wheat to turn it black.
Northern Brewer for hops? Chinook? 35 IBUs or so with enough at flameout to give it a touch of pine on the aftertaste.
schmittychris
Member
I did a caramel amber with this and I used some left over Sorachi Ace. Some people don't like it, but the lemon and slight dill offset the sweetness of the beer very well. One of my better beers to date.
TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
I've wondered about the effects of elevation on this process myself. It changes the boiling point (water boils around 196-7 where I live at 7500') so it would make sense that it would impact the target temps when making syrup/ candy.
And definitely question the quality and accuracy of any measuring instruments
TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
Just found this with a little Google Fu...
https://bakingwithaltitude.com/high-altitude-candy-making-tips/
https://bakingwithaltitude.com/high-altitude-candy-making-tips/
TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
Basically lower target temps by 2°F for every 1000' of elevation. So I would need to adjust all temps down about 15°F !
Hello,
I want to brew a westy 12 and as i can't find d-180 candi syrup here i decided to cook mine. What is the most similar recipe to d-180? Will i have the same taste result? Can i use another yeast nutrient than DAP?
Thanks
I want to brew a westy 12 and as i can't find d-180 candi syrup here i decided to cook mine. What is the most similar recipe to d-180? Will i have the same taste result? Can i use another yeast nutrient than DAP?
Thanks
I've never used or tasted D-180, but from what I gather it's difficult to make something like that yourself. I've got a bunch of candi syrup batches under the belt, and still occasionally seem to overshoot temps and the resulting syrup becomes harsh, leaving weird flavors in the beer. Obviously, I don't use those overshoots for beer anymore. If anyone has done anything close to D-90, D-120, or D-180 I'm very interested in hearing how you did it. Don't they have a D-360 now?
It's hard to gauge the darkness in SRM once it becomes that dark. I noticed that the syrup turning much darker than I expected once I added the final water (or wort in my case).
Using wort instead of water is one thing I've been experimenting with and I think with good success. The wort used is a malty one, in the 1.070-1.080 range. It was harvested from what was left behind in the kettle after draining into the fermentor. I first strained out the trub, then let it sit to for a few hours in a tall jar to precipitate the trub that hadn't filtered out. Then saved the clear wort from the top by decanting.
The wort with the DAP creates a more yummy tasting syrup than DAP alone, IMO. I envision the complex sugars from the wort add a whole new dimension to the melanoidin production and the resulting syrup. I started doing this with my last 3 batches of Belgian IPA, so the wort also has a decent hop charge in it from whirlpooling. Not sure how that comes into play, but the results are very rewarding at least for the Deep Amber (270F) syrup I made.
I guess you could use any color DME in a pinch instead of saved out wort.
Now the hop flavor compounds may not work to our advantage once the temps rise above 270, so that needs to be tested. The 290F syrup I did that way came out harsh, but that may not be from the hops.
thenorthwesthammer
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These recipes look amazing! I have a couple newb questions, sorry if they were answered in the thread....I read through about a dozen pages.
1) This may be obvious but if I wanted half the amount of sugar would I half all the amounts of the water and DAP? I would go with YES just double checking.
2) How do you preheat your mason jar?
3) When you transfer the syrup into your mason jar are you letting it cool in open air? When its cool are you putting a lid on it? How long does it last?
Thanks
1) This may be obvious but if I wanted half the amount of sugar would I half all the amounts of the water and DAP? I would go with YES just double checking.
2) How do you preheat your mason jar?
3) When you transfer the syrup into your mason jar are you letting it cool in open air? When its cool are you putting a lid on it? How long does it last?
Thanks
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
1) Yes, that's what I've done and had great results.
2) You could boil it. I've only put cooled syrup into jars.
3) Place the pan in the sink in a bath of cold water and let it cool for 10 minutes or so and transfer syrup to a room temp mason jar. Put the lid on and stick it in the fridge. Should last quite a while. Longest I've gone is a 2-3 months and it was fine, so I'm sure it will go a lot longer.
2) You could boil it. I've only put cooled syrup into jars.
3) Place the pan in the sink in a bath of cold water and let it cool for 10 minutes or so and transfer syrup to a room temp mason jar. Put the lid on and stick it in the fridge. Should last quite a while. Longest I've gone is a 2-3 months and it was fine, so I'm sure it will go a lot longer.
thenorthwesthammer
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Thanks LLBeanJ. Everyone seems to mention a pan. What about using a smaller surface area pot? To create less spattering. Or do you need the larger heated surface area of a pan?
LLBeanJ
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Pan, pot, tomato, tomato. I use a little (1 qt-ish) SST sauce pan, which is maybe 7 or 8" in diameter and a couple inches tall. I wouldn't think you'd want to go too wide, as you need to have some depth to the liquid to keep your thermometer submerged, so I doubt anyone's using a skillet or something like that unless they're making a fairly large amount.
thenorthwesthammer
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I'm an extreme newb with this but I need help! I tried to make this twice tonight with opposite fails.
First I added the listed amount of water to cool to 240.....And poured it all in....Cooled too fast and was a liquid. So decided to try again.
Second time added water slowly until it hit 240 ....It wasn't much water. Stirred and then transferred to cold water. Quickly it was a solid brick of sugar in my pot.
The colour and flavour are what I expected.
What's the proper technique for cooling....I'm lost here.
I ended up just chipping away at the brick in the pot and put it in a mason jar and will use that for my brew....Prob not full amount but close enough...But don't want to repeat this.
First I added the listed amount of water to cool to 240.....And poured it all in....Cooled too fast and was a liquid. So decided to try again.
Second time added water slowly until it hit 240 ....It wasn't much water. Stirred and then transferred to cold water. Quickly it was a solid brick of sugar in my pot.
The colour and flavour are what I expected.
What's the proper technique for cooling....I'm lost here.
I ended up just chipping away at the brick in the pot and put it in a mason jar and will use that for my brew....Prob not full amount but close enough...But don't want to repeat this.
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
Sounds like your thermometer might be a little off. At 240 you should be at the soft ball stage, but it sounds like you were closer to hard ball, which happens around 260, or even soft crack, which is around 275. For the cooling stage i slowly pour in the prescribed amount of water and it always takes it well below 240, so i keep heating to bring it back to 240, but usually stop around 220 or so otherwise it gets too thick. Also, it will thicken up quite a bit as it cools. Sounds to me like your first attemp was about right.
thenorthwesthammer
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Ok that makes sense. The first go around I slowly dumped in all the listed water and took it off heat and realized it was way below 240 ....it was just liquid. Second time i only dumped in small amount of water while cooling until it hit 240 then took it off and cooled in water....it solidified.
So I was closer to correct the first time around but should have heated it a little bit to thicken it a bit.
Does that thickening change the chemistry of it at all?
For example could I just slow boil the sugar until it hits the desired temp, say 290 F. Then dump in the water to cool it, it will now be liquid...then dump this into my brew thats boiling??? Does it need to be thickened up?
Thanks for all the quick help....brewing this afternoon.
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
Honestly, i don't think it needs to be thickened up after cooling. I don't know if you've ever used any of the commercial candi syrups, but they are not very thick at all.
thenorthwesthammer
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It makes sense that you wouldn't need to. I think all the chemistry that we are after is having when we heat the sugar and boil it until it changes the certain colour we are looking for.
I think I will redo it again while i'm mashing. Thanks for all the help.
I think thickening to soft ball is useful for storage, but if I were making my candi side-by-side with the beer I was making it for I'd probably (slowly) pour in hot wort to cool and dilute it and then pour it straight into the kettle. You've already reached your desired color and flavor, and it's just going to get diluted in the wort anyway, so thickening and cooling before dissolving and diluting it in the hot wort just seems like unnecessary effort.
LLBeanJ
Well-Known Member
I completely agree with this.
+1^ and +1 ^^ No point in concentrating when you dump it into a kettle with 6 gallon of wort (mostly water).
I too prefer the syrup to be quite liquid when pouring in. But for a different reason.
I always add my sugar syrups when (primary) fermentation has slowed down, at around 2/3 done. I pour it into the bucket through the grommet hole (grommet removed) using a 3" funnel with an 8" piece of hose attached to the spout. I pour in a steady stream keeping about an inch or 2 of syrup in the funnel, so it won't gurgle and pull air in, oxidizing the beer.
I too prefer the syrup to be quite liquid when pouring in. But for a different reason.
I always add my sugar syrups when (primary) fermentation has slowed down, at around 2/3 done. I pour it into the bucket through the grommet hole (grommet removed) using a 3" funnel with an 8" piece of hose attached to the spout. I pour in a steady stream keeping about an inch or 2 of syrup in the funnel, so it won't gurgle and pull air in, oxidizing the beer.
This is an interesting idea. I assume you're using a pretty small hose and funnel to fit in the grommet hole? I want to say I'd like to do this, but I also know myself and recognize that I'm terrible at monitoring fermentation so I'd probably forget to add the sugar entirely...
After taking the rubber grommet out, the opening is wide enough for a 3/8" OD vinyl tube, perhaps a little wider. As long as there is a little gap for air to escape, it works fine. I use a piece of 1/2" OD tubing as an adapter to connect the funnel end and the tube. Vinyl hose of different diameters make great adapters one fitting into another rather tightly.
With the last series of Belgian IPAs the fermentation was so fast, done in 36 hours, I missed the sugar addition window on one, although I'm sure the yeast would have restarted if I had added it. I just left that one as is, but do miss the added flavor. The next one right after went fast too, but I was prepared. Added the thinnish syrup at 1.030, 24 hours in.
You really should try using wort (1.060-1.080) instead of water when making the syrup. It adds an amazing flavor and dimension. I also noticed that stirring is not wanted, although I scrape the sides of the pot 2 or 3 times during those 30-40 minutes to bring the layer of sugar crystals that forms there back to the party. Adding small amounts of water periodically (1 tablespoon) during the simmer allow you to extend the maillard process without raising the temps (and color) beyond your target.
Using tubing as adapters is definitely part of my game, but I use silicone because it's easier to get silicone tubing that I trust in China than vinyl. Unfortunately, silicone tubing is quite flexible so it often allows air in where you attach different sizes in series - this is causing oxidation issues in my bottling setup that I need to work on, and has made siphoning impossible in one case.
I read your comments about using wort instead of water and I'm totally down with it: I love reducing some wort on the side during the boil of a big beer that could use the extra flavor. At the same time, my only source of quick-and-easy wort (since I don't make my candi on brewday so I can't just pull it from the kettle) is baker's DME. I might try it anyway, but it's not the greatest stuff in the world.
Who knows where my vinyl tubing is coming from?
I really like the Kuriyama tubing as it is nice, soft and flexible even when ice cold, but it's difficult to find in other sizes than thick-walled beer line. I've seen thin-walled 3/16", so there must be other sizes out there. Now for adapters the stiffer vinyl is easier to insert into each other. A little hot water to separate them later.
Exposure to the vinyl tubing is short and at low temps, so it should be fairly safe, even if it isn't marked as food quality. But if you have an inkling the stuff is bad, you definitely shouldn't ignore it.
Silicone tubing is indeed hard to "stack." I've used short pieces of vinyl tubing to build up diameter on hard tubes (acrylic, SS), so the silicone can be clamped to it. Very Cat in the Hat like.
If you can get beer quality DME it would probably be better than baker's. I think baker's DME contains significant amounts of maltodextrin, sawdust, and what not. Yeah, low quality.
But, you can save a few pints or quarts of wort and freeze it. Or pressure "can" it in mason jars for later use. I've been able to save a few sealed quart containers in the fridge for a few days, even long enough to make syrups and add to the beer at day 4 or 5 and later.
Made a 300L caramel amber ale yesterday at a local brewpub, so we made a 7.5kg batch of this stuff, using wort rather than water. Thoughts:
If you don't know your thermometer well (his was a long dial-type meat thermometer that went up to 120C before continuing around the dial), use water and not wort so you can eyeball the color.
The water to sugar ratio can probably be reduced in such large batches to reduce the time it takes to evaporate off all the water, we cooked for 4-5 hours and basically had to stop at soft ball for time and...
...boilover. Apparently a 25-30L pot is not big enough for a 7.5kg batch - I'm pretty sure we were close to the point of evaporating off all of the water and getting those rapid reactions that occur in the 250-300F range (my experience is that the sugar expands most during this stage), but eventually it got to be too much. When you're working with that volume of sugar, the thermal mass is such that the only way to prevent a boilover when the sugar starts to expand rapidly is to add water, and we weren't about to add another hour or three to our cook time. We did add water, but enough to finish cooking and pour the sugar into the fermenter. Although we never got to the hard candy stage where a drop sample turns to solid sugar, we did get some wonderful color and flavor in the sugar - color was in the deep amber range (helped along by the amber wort) and flavor was in the light- to medium amber range, plus some added flavors of concentrated wort.
Now we need to learn how to do even larger volume and get to the proper hard candy stage (and in a reasonable amount of time). He wants to try to do my quad sometime soon, which would scale up to about 18kg of the double-cooked #5 sugar. Maybe try to scrape together pots and burners to make four or five 2-3 kg batches side-by-side and then do it again? I can't imagine the time and pot size it would take to get 18kg of sugar through soft ball and up to 290F/142C, then cool/dilute it with water and do it again. That batch also involved 3.5L of wort concentration during the boil, which is again gonna be a rather difficult task when scaled up to 50L. Maybe if we only concentrated first runnings we could drop the volume by half?
Editing in an idea: has anyone tried Fermcap-S with sugar?
If you don't know your thermometer well (his was a long dial-type meat thermometer that went up to 120C before continuing around the dial), use water and not wort so you can eyeball the color.
The water to sugar ratio can probably be reduced in such large batches to reduce the time it takes to evaporate off all the water, we cooked for 4-5 hours and basically had to stop at soft ball for time and...
...boilover. Apparently a 25-30L pot is not big enough for a 7.5kg batch - I'm pretty sure we were close to the point of evaporating off all of the water and getting those rapid reactions that occur in the 250-300F range (my experience is that the sugar expands most during this stage), but eventually it got to be too much. When you're working with that volume of sugar, the thermal mass is such that the only way to prevent a boilover when the sugar starts to expand rapidly is to add water, and we weren't about to add another hour or three to our cook time. We did add water, but enough to finish cooking and pour the sugar into the fermenter. Although we never got to the hard candy stage where a drop sample turns to solid sugar, we did get some wonderful color and flavor in the sugar - color was in the deep amber range (helped along by the amber wort) and flavor was in the light- to medium amber range, plus some added flavors of concentrated wort.
Now we need to learn how to do even larger volume and get to the proper hard candy stage (and in a reasonable amount of time). He wants to try to do my quad sometime soon, which would scale up to about 18kg of the double-cooked #5 sugar. Maybe try to scrape together pots and burners to make four or five 2-3 kg batches side-by-side and then do it again? I can't imagine the time and pot size it would take to get 18kg of sugar through soft ball and up to 290F/142C, then cool/dilute it with water and do it again. That batch also involved 3.5L of wort concentration during the boil, which is again gonna be a rather difficult task when scaled up to 50L. Maybe if we only concentrated first runnings we could drop the volume by half?
Editing in an idea: has anyone tried Fermcap-S with sugar?
