English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[Peebee]

I've finally got my access to this forum sorted ... and the thread I'm interested in has gone all quiet!!!

But I'm sure my appearance might wake someone up? ...

 

[balrog]

You've missed a rousing discussion of eleventy-million posts about invert sugar.

 

[Peebee]

You've missed a rousing discussion of eleventy-million posts about invert sugar.

Damn!

Too late to go for twelvety-million?

 

[balrog]

Well, I've stayed out of all that discussion mostly because I tried it once, made some #2-ish, used it, fought it all the way out of the mason jar kicking and screaming and clinging to the inner walls with super sticky abandon, and decided purchasing some Lyle's Golden was much easier for the styles I make. Others are more adventuresome. I'm just lazy.

 

[Franktalk]

Well, I've stayed out of all that discussion mostly because I tried it once, made some #2-ish, used it, fought it all the way out of the mason jar kicking and screaming and clinging to the inner walls with super sticky abandon, and decided purchasing some Lyle's Golden was much easier for the styles I make. Others are more adventuresome. I'm just lazy.

All you have to do is put the jar into some hot water for a little while, and you can pour it much easier that way.

 

[Franktalk]

I've finally got my access to this forum sorted ... and the thread I'm interested in has gone all quiet!!!

But I'm sure my appearance might wake someone up? ...

Welcome, Peebee! I think you will make a splash on this side of the pond!

 

[Peebee]

... Others are more adventuresome. I'm just lazy.

That's what I'd advocate (I'm particularly "lazy" about it). But what I say goes down well with the quiet majority, but really rubs-up the noisy minority the wrong way. As I think @Franktalk is implying:

... I think you will make a splash on this side of the pond!

Anyway, what I really want to learn is: From somewhere around the end of 19th C. UK brewers did use propriety sugars that will have involve caramelising. Ron Pattinson has been ranting about them too:

https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2023/12/barley-wine-sugars-1970-1982.html
(Warning: No restraint on use of expletives!).

Now, whatever I think about "Brewers' Invert Sugars/Syrups" (it seems to have been talked about in this thread!), has anyone been researching into these sugars? (Second table). I'm sure Mr Pattinson would be interested in that sort of stuff too!

 

[Peebee]

Well, that fell flat! But sugar is an important ingredient in 20th C. UK beers. "Brewers' Invert Sugar" from the 19th C. is, I think, well stitched up (personally, I don't even bother with the "inverting" bit 'cos I can't perceive any difference to flavour that "inverting" achieves).

I'll try again: This is "table 2" from that barclayperkins.blogspot.com site mentioned above:

So what are PEX, CWA, DS, SLS, Fermax? There's a suggestion in the "comments, such as "DS" stands for "diastase syrup"? Could well be, and if so perhaps should be absorbed into the base malt, not the Invert Sugar as is the usual way? Some would obviously make a very different beer depending on descision ... like that "Whitbread Gold Label" with 21.41% of something called "SMS".

That is what I'd like to see. All these "propriety sugars" grouped into generic categories such that when you see "Fermax" you might reach for a caramelised syrup of "NN SRM", etc.

Has anyone done the like?

 

[balrog]

I gotta tap out on this one, I have no clue.

 

[huckdavidson]

Well, that fell flat! But sugar is an important ingredient in 20th C. UK beers. "Brewers' Invert Sugar" from the 19th C. is, I think, well stitched up (personally, I don't even bother with the "inverting" bit 'cos I can't perceive any difference to flavour that "inverting" achieves).

I'll try again: This is "table 2" from that barclayperkins.blogspot.com site mentioned above:

View attachment 836504

So what are PEX, CWA, DS, SLS, Fermax? There's a suggestion in the "comments, such as "DS" stands for "diastase syrup"? Could well be, and if so perhaps should be absorbed into the base malt, not the Invert Sugar as is the usual way? Some would obviously make a very different beer depending on descision ... like that "Whitbread Gold Label" with 21.41% of something called "SMS".

That is what I'd like to see. All these "propriety sugars" grouped into generic categories such that when you see "Fermax" you might reach for a caramelised syrup of "NN SRM", etc.

Has anyone done the like?

Those are most likely abbreviations for company names. At that time they may have produced sugar products used in brewing:

These are best guesses:

PEX - Alcohol & Sugar Industry - Industrial Applications - Pexgol
CWA - Home | Nestlé Central & West Africa
DS - Welcome to DS Sugars
SLS - no longer in the sugar business?
Fermax - no longer in the sugar business?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Oh no back to bloody sugar again.

 

[Peebee]

Oh no back to bloody sugar again.

That's a good point ...

You know what they might use to "clarify" the sugar cane juice ahead of refining ...

If they were feeling flush, they might have used egg whites (a heck of a lot of them!). Fortunately, these days sugar can be considered "vegetarian", maybe even "vegan"?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

That's a good point ...

You know what they might use to "clarify" the sugar cane juice ahead of refining ...

If they were feeling flush, they might have used egg whites (a heck of a lot of them!). Fortunately, sugar these days sugar can be considered "vegetarian", maybe even "vegan"?

Not you as well drooling on about sugar, you need to refine your replies.

 

[Peebee]

Those are most likely abbreviations for company names. At that time they may have produced sugar products used in brewing:

These are best guesses:

PEX - Alcohol & Sugar Industry - Industrial Applications - Pexgol
CWA - Home | Nestlé Central & West Africa
DS - Welcome to DS Sugars
SLS - no longer in the sugar business?
Fermax - no longer in the sugar business?

Thay's a bit of a downer! I hadn't thought that they might be as cryptic as to only use the abbreviation to indicate a manufacturer. It could have been the norm if they only used one product from them.

Pexgol made products that could be used by the sugar industry. Pexgol aren't part of the sugar industry, but DS Sugars certainly is!

And at the moment the list of abbreviations is just those five in that Blog post: There's an avalanche of abbreviations waiting in the wings.


Talking of DS Sugars, you know when you've spent too long mucking about with this subject when:

• A modernized boiling house combination of falling film evaporators, Vertical continues pan for A, B, C R1 and R2 Massecute boiling with Melt clarification system.

... starts to mean something to you

 

[Peebee]

Not you as well drooling on about sugar, you need to refine your replies.

Wrong!

The answer was "blood". Cow or bulls' blood: Hey, they wouldn't have been able to use that in India. Perhaps they had a lot of egg-laying chickens?

 

[huckdavidson]

Thay's a bit of a downer! I hadn't thought that they might be as cryptic as to only use the abbreviation to indicate a manufacturer. It could have been the norm if they only used one product from them.

Pexgol made products that could be used by the sugar industry. Pexgol aren't part of the sugar industry, but DS Sugars certainly is!

And at the moment the list of abbreviations is just those five in that Blog post: There's an avalanche of abbreviations waiting in the wings.

A modern internet search, as I've used, most likely doesn't do it justice. Maybe the library would have historical references to sugar product companies of the era.

More guesses:

SLS = Saint Louis Sucre
Fermax = maybe the name of a brand at the time?

Talking of DS Sugars, you know when you've spent too long mucking about with this subject when:



... starts to mean something to you

Careful there you might hurt yourself.

 

[Peebee]

... Careful there you might hurt yourself.

Oh no. Not again?

 

[DuncB]

This from barclay perkins is interesting.
I'm tempted by this method
" by heating the solution of cane sugar with yeast at a temperature of 140° F. for three or four hours. The inverting agent in this case is an active principle, or enzyme, known as invertase, contained in the yeast cell. For some kinds of beer, more especially for running porters, raw cane sugar is used;"

from this article

https://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2010/03/brewing-sugars.html

 

[ba-brewer]

I like the idea of getting the malt to create the glucose for you but I have not tried it yet. The information is in the other mash enzymes section.
https://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/The_Theory_of_Mashing#Glucanase

I wonder if you could use some malt extract instead of two mashes to speed things up.

 

[DuncB]

I like the idea of getting the malt to create the glucose for you but I have not tried it yet. The information is in the other mash enzymes section.
https://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/The_Theory_of_Mashing#Glucanase

I wonder if you could use some malt extract instead of two mashes to speed things up.

That link sent me down a mashing enzyme education session. Thanks.

 

[ba-brewer]

I see information about using maltase to convert maltose to glucose. Mash a portion of the grain at normal conversion temp then drop the temp to 95F and add the rest of the grain to convert the maltose to glucose.

edit: it is at the "other mash enzymes section"

 

[Miraculix]

I like the idea of getting the malt to create the glucose for you but I have not tried it yet. The information is in the other mash enzymes section.
https://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/The_Theory_of_Mashing#Glucanase

I wonder if you could use some malt extract instead of two mashes to speed things up.

You mean to skip the the first step? Should work. You could use something with a very high enzymatic activity like chit malt. Pilsner or wheat should also work. With chit, about 20% of the grist that would have created the extract should be sufficient.

 

[ba-brewer]

You mean to skip the the first step? Should work. You could use something with a very high enzymatic activity like chit malt. Pilsner or wheat should also work. With chit, about 20% of the grist that would have created the extract should be sufficient.

Instead of doing a saccharification rest and cooling that wort, use malt extract as the source of maltose and mash in at the cooler 95F temp.

If you were doing multiple beers you could use wort from an earlier different batch too or even same rubbing in the fridge.

The link mentions using half the grain bill to get 40% glucose but that seems a bit much.

 

[Miraculix]

Instead of doing a saccharification rest and cooling that wort, use malt extract as the source of maltose and mash in at the cooler 95F temp.

If you were doing multiple beers you could use wort from an earlier different batch too or even same rubbing in the fridge.

The link mentions using half the grain bill to get 40% glucose but that seems a bit much.

I used 30% Pilsner, rest unmalted wheat in one beer I've made. Converted fine within 1 hour. Chit malt should have almost double the enzymes as pilsner has, so way less should be necessary. Also, we only want the beta activity in this case and beta is really fast once the starch is gelatenized and available for being chopped down. As we already have only sugars from the extract, it should be done in about twenty minutes or so I guess.

 

[Peebee]

The title of this immensely long thread is "English Ales; What's Your Favorite Recipe". But we're wandering off a touch from anything I recognise as "English"! (Or "British" - here in Wales we're a tad sensitive to being assumed to be "English"). @DuncB was remaining on track mentioning a historical method of "inverting" sugar, although I personally can't see the point of "inverting".

So ... why is everyone "inverting" sugar? Flavour? Or something else?


Some here will know (from elsewhere) I'm a little "opinionated" about early brewing sugars, but I also like to hear other ideas. I promise not to rant at any answers ... well not too much! I honestly can't taste the difference between inverted sugar used in beer and un-inverted sugar used in beer.

 

[huckdavidson]

The title of this immensely long thread is "English Ales; What's Your Favorite Recipe". But we're wandering off a touch from anything I recognise as "English"! (Or "British" - here in Wales we're a tad sensitive to being assumed to be "English"). @DuncB was remaining on track mentioning a historical method of "inverting" sugar, although I personally can't see the point of "inverting".

So ... why is everyone "inverting" sugar? Flavour? Or something else?


Some here will know (from elsewhere) I'm a little "opinionated" about early brewing sugars, but I also like to hear other ideas. I promise not to rant at any answers ... well not too much! I honestly can't taste the difference between inverted sugar used in beer and un-inverted sugar used in beer.

Pure hearsay and speculation but yeast would be a good reason to invert sucrose. High glucose contents cause some yeast to emit more esters of the kind favored in certain styles of beer. Banana in wheat beer for example. Splitting the sucrose before hand relieves the yeast of such innane duties perhaps driving higher desirable ester output. It would be interesting to know if depriving yeast of such functions has any effect on the genetics of further generations. I've often wondered if marmalade was partly driven by this concept.

 

[ba-brewer]

So ... why is everyone "inverting" sugar? Flavour? Or something else?

Corn sugar is getting expensive, making invert cuts that price in half. I make it in a pressure canner so it is thin and sterile and can be add directly to the fermentor.

I started using corn sugar to see if it would help bring out esters, seems to help. Should circle back sometime to see if it really helps or it was a lighter hand with late hops additions that brought out the esters.

 

[Franktalk]

I invert sugar for some of my "English" ales. I start with turbinado and invert it with heat and acid, and "caramelize" it with time, and I think I get the caramel flavor, and other flavors, from the interaction between the sugar and the yeast. It is subjective, but I would swear under oath by it.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Why do you add sugar to your British beers rather than just using grain? I’ve always got three cornies full of bitter and have never used sugar. I do use sugar on Belgian beer but not British or American.

 

[Peebee]

Why do you add sugar to your British beers ...

Matter of "taste". Why do you add sugar to "Belgian" style beers? And this topic (somewhere back in time when it started) is titled "English Ales: What's Your Favorite Recipe" and as many English (British!) beers contained sugar, a copy is going to have to contain sugar.

It's going on in the commercial world too. Ragus make emulations of the sugars used 150-180 years ago; it isn't cheap, but there's still sufficient demand for it. And since then, Britian developed a kaleidoscope of different brewing sugars. (The cheapest nastiest stuff may depend on clear sucrose syrup, but there will be some who prefer that).

My interest developed from grubbing around in recipes Ron Pattinson unearthed. Before then I wouldn't touch sugar either. But now ...