20 lb of sugar and a jar of yeast nutrient

[TANSTAAFB]

Basically lower target temps by 2°F for every 1000' of elevation. So I would need to adjust all temps down about 15°F !

 

[nick113]

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

 

[IslandLizard]

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'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]

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

 

[LLBeanJ]

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.

 

[thenorthwesthammer]

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]

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]

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.

 

[LLBeanJ]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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.

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.

 

[FatDragon]

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]

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.

I completely agree with this.

 

[IslandLizard]

+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.

 

[FatDragon]

+1^ and +1 ^^ No point in concentrating when you dump it into a 6 gallon kettle with 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.

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...

 

[IslandLizard]

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.

 

[FatDragon]

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.

 

[IslandLizard]

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.

 

[FatDragon]

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?

 

[eimar]

Thank`s a lot for that very interesting thread.
I work at the craft Cervejaria Bodebrown in the city of Curitiba ( southern Brasil ) . Last friday we made 150 kg ( about 300 lbs ) of candi syrup for a tripel. We were shooting for some rose color ( 250 F ) but by the time we reached that temperature the color was too dark and it looks like the deep amber color ( 290F ) . Any suggestion about how to correct our mistake ? That said the result turned very delicious but more suited for a dubbel .

Jacques

 

[FatDragon]

Holy crap, and I'm complaining about 7.5kg being hard to make!

I think the longer boil to evaporate off the water in a big batch leads to a lot of caramelization and maillard reactions before you even get past the soft ball stage. That was my experience with the batch I did. We finished around 125C with the color of a deep amber batch and the caramel complexity of a medium amber batch without coming close to those temperatures.

Incidentally, what did you use to cook that much sugar? We struggled with a 25L pot for 7.5kg so I can't imagine the vessel required for 150kg.

 

[eimar]

Thank you Fat Dragon for your suggestion. It looks like that for big volumes the curve color Vs temperature dosn't apply. We produced the 300 lbs in the Bliechmann panel

 

[Josh254]

Anyone else make any batches that won't ferment? I've been making syrups for beers for many years and some times they won't ferment. I do fermentation tests on each batch to make sure all is good before using any in my beers. I'd be interested to know if anyone has had similar experiences.

 

[Bosh]

Will be making a caramel porter next and some questions. I made an old ale that came out very well after an attempt to make dark (no 3) invert sugar following these directions: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

The difference between that recipe and the recipe here is that to get the syrup dark you cook it for a very long time instead of using a high temperature.

I tried it by dissolving the sugar on a stove top and then sticking the stuff in the oven because I don't have a candy thermometer. I cooked the stuff for hours and hours at low temperature and the temperature just never darkened and I finally got bored and cranked up the temperature in steps, eventually to 285 Fahrenheit and let it cook.

Ended up with DELICIOUS but insanely sticky and difficult to deal with caramel syrup. The actual beer came out well as well, had a complex almost smoky taste that went over well.

I was fumbling around but the beer turned out well so I'm thinking of I should try to replicate what I did before or follow the instructions on this thread.

How much of a difference does using acid to invert the sugar vs. putting in yeast nutrient do?

 

[FatDragon]

Thank you Fat Dragon for your suggestion. It looks like that for big volumes the curve color Vs temperature dosn't apply. We produced the 300 lbs in the Bliechmann panel

How did you avoid a massive boilover? Our sugar expanded like crazy, which is why we stopped short of our target temperature, but you seem to have that kettle basically full without any boilover.

Will be making a caramel porter next and some questions. I made an old ale that came out very well after an attempt to make dark (no 3) invert sugar following these directions: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

The difference between that recipe and the recipe here is that to get the syrup dark you cook it for a very long time instead of using a high temperature.

I tried it by dissolving the sugar on a stove top and then sticking the stuff in the oven because I don't have a candy thermometer. I cooked the stuff for hours and hours at low temperature and the temperature just never darkened and I finally got bored and cranked up the temperature in steps, eventually to 285 Fahrenheit and let it cook.

Ended up with DELICIOUS but insanely sticky and difficult to deal with caramel syrup. The actual beer came out well as well, had a complex almost smoky taste that went over well.

I was fumbling around but the beer turned out well so I'm thinking of I should try to replicate what I did before or follow the instructions on this thread.

How much of a difference does using acid to invert the sugar vs. putting in yeast nutrient do?

This will be extremely anecdotal, but I've used DAP, lemon juice (for acid), and nothing at all in syrups like this before. The sugar with no additives was very finicky and burned easily, even giving burnt flavors at lighter colors. With lemon juice for acid, it was a bit finicky and I had to be very careful not to overcook it, and the flavors were more caramel and less stone fruit. DAP has been a bit more forgiving and it offers by far the most complex flavors of the three methods I've tried. What I haven't done yet is a batch with pure acid added. It's possible my lemon juice batches have simply had too little acid to finish the job.

 

[eimar]

How did you avoid a massive boilover? Our sugar expanded like crazy, which is why we stopped short of our target temperature, but you seem to have that kettle basically full without any boilover.


.

By setting the burner to minimum heat. It took us ... 7 hours.

Today we produced half of that amount ( about 80 kg op 160 pounds of sugar ) in 3 hours but we almost had a boilover.

Once again we confirm that for a big quantity one has to check the color visually and not rely on the temperature reading.

Jacques

 

[kshuler]

WOW. Can't believe I had;t seen this thread before. I'll give this a try! Thanks for all the hard work!

 

[FatDragon]

By setting the burner to minimum heat. It took us ... 7 hours.

Today we produced half of that amount ( about 80 kg op 160 pounds of sugar ) in 3 hours but we almost had a boilover.

Once again we confirm that for a big quantity one has to check the color visually and not rely on the temperature reading.

Jacques

This gives me hope that I can make the ~20kg batch for a 300L clone of my quad in my 35L kettle. Just gotta find the time and a big enough pitch of Rochefort yeast to convince the brewer to let me do it, and a couple more kettles and cooktops to do some wort reduction during the boil of course.

 

[Bosh]

How did you avoid a massive boilover? Our sugar expanded like crazy, which is why we stopped short of our target temperature, but you seem to have that kettle basically full without any boilover.



This will be extremely anecdotal, but I've used DAP, lemon juice (for acid), and nothing at all in syrups like this before. The sugar with no additives was very finicky and burned easily, even giving burnt flavors at lighter colors. With lemon juice for acid, it was a bit finicky and I had to be very careful not to overcook it, and the flavors were more caramel and less stone fruit. DAP has been a bit more forgiving and it offers by far the most complex flavors of the three methods I've tried. What I haven't done yet is a batch with pure acid added. It's possible my lemon juice batches have simply had too little acid to finish the job.

Looks I got really lucky with my bumbling around then. I think my caramel was just about to start burning when I took it out but I took it out at the nick of time and it just had a bit of smoky flavor that was nice. But I don't think I'll have the luck to recreate that exactly.

Did some reading on this stuff and apparently these cooked sugars get their flavor from caramelization and Maillard reactions. Maillard reactions are really dependent on nitrogen which is exactly what the DAP is full of.

It also seems that if British dark invert syrup is cooked for longer at lower temperatures than Belgian candi sugar that you'd expect to get more Maillard reaction flavors and less caramelization flavors.

So what I'm thinking of doing is the long slow cook and see if having the DAP makes a difference in terms of getting Maillard reactions going.

From my very limited experience I seem to like dark sugar candi and syrups more than crystal malt when it comes to flavor so this is something I'll keep on experimenting with.