Candy Sugar The Right Way (hint we've been doing it wrong)

[ryane]

I have problems finding slaked lime/calcium hydroxide here in Iceland. Is there anywhere on the net which I can order it internationally?

I really dont know, Im guessing that because it is a very strong base that any shipping of it would be considered hazardous shipping.

But you could probably try ebay, it seems strange to me that they wouldnt carry it at supermarkets or a feed store when the weather warms up though. Its used quite a bit for maintaining aquariums, making pickled foods, or adjusting soil pH

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

I know this thread is 4-5 months old but for the record I do not get burnt flavors simply using straight sugar + water + heat. If you are getting burnt flavors it is likely because you have the heat too high and/or are not using enough water. I have found that after disolving the sugar in water and then immediately moving it to the oven set at 260F allows you to develop some good flavor without that burnt taste. It does take much longer in the oven (2 hours for a dark amber).

I of course found your experimentation useful and will probably give the lime a shot to see if it helps flavor.

 

[mistercameron]

That's actually a pretty good idea. I've made candi sugar once and the worst part was fiddling with the stove while keeping an eye on the thermometer. Tun it up, turn it down, add water, repeat. Even for light syrup it took me over an hour to get there - probably because you want to keep the sugar under 170° and my electric stove isn't the best tool for fast+fine temp adjustments.

I can handle sticking it in the oven and checking every 10-15 minutes.

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

That's actually a pretty good idea. I've made candi sugar once and the worst part was fiddling with the stove while keeping an eye on the thermometer. Tun it up, turn it down, add water, repeat. Even for light syrup it took me over an hour to get there - probably because you want to keep the sugar under 170° and my electric stove isn't the best tool for fast+fine temp adjustments.

I can handle sticking it in the oven and checking every 10-15 minutes.

Do you mean under 270F?

My procedure is:

1. Mix 1 cup water to 0.75 cup sugar in an oven safe sauce pan.
2. Heat on low heat in a pot on the burner until the sugar is mostly dissolved. BE VERY CAREFUL to not turn the burner up too high or you will get burnt flavors. At the same time I set the stove to 260F.
3. Move the sauce pan with sugar into the oven. Keep an eye on the temp. The first few times I checked with a thermometer but once I got a feel for my oven I don't check anymore. Keep in mind oven thermometers arent always all that accurate.
4. Check the mixture every 5-10 minutes. I usually watch TV and check it every commercial.
5. Remove when it is the desired color, it usually takes me 1.5-2 hours.

Definetly appreciate the work of the OP and plan to check the lime and nutrient additions to see how it changes flavors.

Which leads me to other great part of using the oven. You can break the batch down into as many oven safe pots/pans you can fit in your oven and test many things side by side under the same conditions. I usually do 0.25 cup experiments.

 

[mistercameron]

Yes, I do mean 270. For pure testing purposes, using a bunch of ramekins would be handy. Did you have any problems with boil-over?

 

[Mk010101]

Do you mean under 270F?

1. Mix 1 cup water to 0.75 cup sugar in an oven safe sauce pan.

How many lbs. does this yield? Thanks!

 

[callemann]

Hi!

I've been following this and similar threads for some time now, hoping to uncover a working recipe for producing a candi syrup similar quality to d-180/d2. And as far as I have understood this thread focuses on alkalizing the syrup during boiling, avoiding caramelization and enhancing mallaird reactions.

This are very interesting ideas, but I still have and see the same problems everyone else has with these homemade syrups: They also produce high amounts of unfermentable carbohydrates. This renders the syrup unusable for the preferred dry finish of a true belgian dark strong.

The commercial syrups(e.g. d-180) does not suffer from this, but still acheive a very complex taste and profile. So how do they do it!? How do they indeed avoid all these unfermentables, when the flavors by all standards scream of caramel and maillard. As far as my own testing go, and literature read, both caramels and maillard products have severely poor fermentability.

So where are we with this now? Are we any closer to reproducing the amazing dark syrups, key to the holy grail of beers: belgian dark strongs! I am seriously about to go insane if I can't figure this out!

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Do you mean under 270F?

My procedure is:

1. Mix 1 cup water to 0.75 cup sugar in an oven safe sauce pan.
2. Heat on low heat in a pot on the burner until the sugar is mostly dissolved. BE VERY CAREFUL to not turn the burner up too high or you will get burnt flavors. At the same time I set the stove to 260F.
3. Move the sauce pan with sugar into the oven. Keep an eye on the temp. The first few times I checked with a thermometer but once I got a feel for my oven I don't check anymore. Keep in mind oven thermometers arent always all that accurate.
4. Check the mixture every 5-10 minutes. I usually watch TV and check it every commercial.
5. Remove when it is the desired color, it usually takes me 1.5-2 hours.

Definetly appreciate the work of the OP and plan to check the lime and nutrient additions to see how it changes flavors.

Which leads me to other great part of using the oven. You can break the batch down into as many oven safe pots/pans you can fit in your oven and test many things side by side under the same conditions. I usually do 0.25 cup experiments.

Do you stir the mixture when you check on it?

 

[mistercameron]

Has anyone tried beet sugar? It looks relatively cheap on Amazon, and might give a better flavor profile. Maybe.

Check this article, and skip to page 3 for the taste testing in baking.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SUGAR-SUGAR-Cane-and-beet-share-the-same-2939081.php

 

[Calder]

They also produce high amounts of unfermentable carbohydrates. This renders the syrup unusable for the preferred dry finish of a true belgian dark strong.

The commercial syrups(e.g. d-180) does not suffer from this, but still acheive a very complex taste and profile. So how do they do it!? How do they indeed avoid all these unfermentables, when the flavors by all standards scream of caramel and maillard. As far as my own testing go, and literature read, both caramels and maillard products have severely poor fermentability.

Mine seems very fermentable. Where do you get the idea that it creates unfermentable sugars.

 

[callemann]

Mine seems very fermentable. Where do you get the idea that it creates unfermentable sugars.

My own experiments using rouglhy 1.5kg for rochefort 8 attempts with step/low mashing to increase fermentability renders my always at around 1.020fg, when it should be closer to 1.010. Aditionally, I use the exact same recipe for a tripel without the syrup, ending at 1.010.

My procedure for syrup is as follows:

1. Boil up sugar, a teaspoon of molasses, DAP and an alkalizing agent(dilute NaOH-check pH).
2. Heat to 260F, cool to 200F and repeat 2 times or until desired taste (dark toffe, plum, date-ish).
3. Cool, and add at end of boil.

I also find that the end flavor is off somehow, and quite different to the syrup flavors after the boil. ALmost a tendency to soy sauce flavors.

As for the fermentability, I thought S. cerveciae had trouble degrading both complex carbohydrates, pyrolyzed caramels and especially maillard compounds and melanoidins (also explaining higher f.g. with caramel malts).

Any thoughts?

 

[Calder]

Interesting, 1.5 kg is probably around 10 points.

I use acid (lemon juice) in mine. Maybe there is a difference between using an alkali and acid.

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

How many lbs. does this yield? Thanks!

No idea, I just go off of the amount of sugar I added in my recipes... which is about 1/2lb per cup.

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

Do you stir the mixture when you check on it?

I don't stir. For the record this isn't go to give you D2 I'm just commenting that the burnt flavors the OP posted about can be avoided if you are more careful to not scorch the sugar. I have found the oven an easier less involved way to do this.

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

Has anyone tried beet sugar? It looks relatively cheap on Amazon, and might give a better flavor profile. Maybe.

Check this article, and skip to page 3 for the taste testing in baking.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SUGAR-SUGAR-Cane-and-beet-share-the-same-2939081.php

Supposedly sucrose is sucrose. In other words "modern" sugar is so refined and pure the fact that it came from cane or beet doesn't really matter its the same end product. I haven't tested that theory personnally...

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

Update:

Based on the OP's experiments I tried a few different things in an 6 tray cupcake tin with 1/4 cp sugar and 3/8th cup water in each tray. After three hours @ 300F (my oven setting) I sampled and made my wife sample as well. By the end of it she was bored so her tasting notes on the later ones weren't so great. For example: "nice nice can we go to bed now?" I just combined our tasting notes into one.

Might I say finding pickling lime is a nightmare? None of my trials involved it since I couldn't find any.

Plain Sugar: Light color very slight caremel taste.
Plain Sugar + Lemon Juice: Light amber color, toffee, caremel, fruity finish.
Sugar + 1/4 tsp Molasses: Light amber color. Molasses, toffee caramel.
Sugar + Baking Soda: Amber, chocolate, salty finish.
Sugar + Baking Soda + Fermax: Chocalate, Hints of Coffee, Salty finish.
Sugar + Fermax: Nuts, very slight hint of chocolate and/or coffee. (I though nut choc, wife thought nut coffee)

I mixed the Fermax with sugar mixure 50:50 with the lemon + sugar mixture: Amber color, nutty upfront, fading to very slight chocolate hint, to toffee/caremel finsihing sour/fruity.

I brewed the below belgian dubbel with .75lb of lemon+sugar mixed with .75lb fermax + sugar after they had seperately sat in the oven @ 300F until the last ten minutes of my boil. Will report back on how it turns out in a month or so.

9lbs Beligain Pils
2oz Special B

0.5oz Styrian @ 60
0.5 Saaz @ 30
0.5 Saaz @ 10

 

[ryane]

Update:

Based on the OP's experiments I tried a few different things in an 6 tray cupcake tin with 1/4 cp sugar and 3/8th cup water in each tray. After three hours @ 300F (my oven setting) I sampled and made my wife sample as well. By the end of it she was bored so her tasting notes on the later ones weren't so great. For example: "nice nice can we go to bed now?" I just combined our tasting notes into one.

Might I say finding pickling lime is a nightmare? None of my trials involved it since I couldn't find any.

Plain Sugar: Light color very slight caremel taste.
Plain Sugar + Lemon Juice: Light amber color, toffee, caremel, fruity finish.
Sugar + 1/4 tsp Molasses: Light amber color. Molasses, toffee caramel.
Sugar + Baking Soda: Amber, chocolate, salty finish.
Sugar + Baking Soda + Fermax: Chocalate, Hints of Coffee, Salty finish.
Sugar + Fermax: Nuts, very slight hint of chocolate and/or coffee. (I though nut choc, wife thought nut coffee)

Yah the baking soda always had a minerally/salty taste that got really bad when I tried to get to the same pH as when using lime

Strange that no one can seem to find pickling lime, seems it should be everywhere this time of year??

Anything else that will elevate pH can be used as well

 

[JonnyJumpUp]

Yah the baking soda always had a minerally/salty taste that got really bad when I tried to get to the same pH as when using lime

Strange that no one can seem to find pickling lime, seems it should be everywhere this time of year??

Anything else that will elevate pH can be used as well

I actually ended up finding it at Walmart for $5 for what I imagine would be a lifetime supply. Also found calcium chloride at the pet store but not sure I'd want to put it in my beer. It was also more expensive.

 

[Titan88]

I'm over a year behind on this discussion but I had a few questions:

1) In your report, you only used malic acid. Why not try a different acid like citric acid, or perhaps acid blend?
2) While you are correct that the Malliard reaction happens when the pH is higher, it still happens with low pH, just at a painstakingly slower rate. Why not use acid to invert the sugar, and then dilute the pH back towards basic by adding water and a pinch of baking soda. It has been proven that baking soda helps speed up the Malliard reaction.

I am by no means a scientist or professional, just food for thought.

EDIT: I read (see link below) that malic acid isn't in FDA guidelines for allowable acids used to make caramel (citric is allowed); however, I am searching the FDA website for confirmation. Also, sodium and bicarbonate are both approved salts in making caramel. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate.

http://nateobrew.blogspot.com/p/diy-candi-syrup.html