Oh no back to bloody sugar again. 
English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?
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That's a good point ...Oh no back to bloody sugar again.
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"?
Not you as well drooling on about sugar, you need to refine your replies.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"?
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:
... starts to mean something to you
Wrong!Not you as well drooling on about sugar, you need to refine your replies.
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
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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 Maybe the library would have historical references to sugar product companies of the era.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.
Oh no. Not again?
DuncB
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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
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
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.
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
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That link sent me down a mashing enzyme education session. Thanks.
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"
edit: it is at the "other mash enzymes section"
Last edited:
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.
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.
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.
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
Well-Known Member
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.
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
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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.
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.
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 ...
I use sugar in Belgian beer to increase the ABV. If I added extra grain I couldn’t lift the grain basket. British beer does not need sugar, it was put in for economical reasons. I don’t brew bitters from 100 years ago I brew modern beers.
But many modern brewers still use sugar, virtually all Timmy Taylor and Sam Smith ales use sugar, Harvey's are still fond of it, the list goes on.
By testiments of Ron P and others, even some breweries that pretend they don't use sugars have had blocks of Invert lieing around during tours etc. It was and still is an integral part to British brewing.
I personally find it gives British style ales a typical "lightness" and "lousciousness" that is nigh impossible to replicate without cane sugar.
By testiments of Ron P and others, even some breweries that pretend they don't use sugars have had blocks of Invert lieing around during tours etc. It was and still is an integral part to British brewing.
I personally find it gives British style ales a typical "lightness" and "lousciousness" that is nigh impossible to replicate without cane sugar.
Each to their own I make Landlord and Sussex without any sugar and they taste good.
A commonly quoted reason for using sugar is to "thin" a potentially heavy beer. But as I've this (active) chart staring me in the face on this computer:
A "Rose" (from up north England) "1896 'AK' " (one of my favorities? Well, I've done it more then once). 9-10% sugars, yet that end gravity of 1.019 (it'll go down 2 or 3 points yet) can hardly be called "thin". The other big change (in only the last 10 years) is we have these "heritage" malts available to use now, "Chavallier", "Plumage Archer", even special edition "Maris Otter" (in use from 1975) that have been malted similar to methods used before 1980. And they finish at high gravities. As would be "normal" for earlier British beers.
Without the sugar this would have been finishing in the twenties (I was mashing slightly lower as well, at 65°C). The yeast helps too (for a higher gravity), this one being a low attenuative "Yorkshire" yeast: A particularily heavy cropping yeast which has been giving the (common style) "Tilt" hydrometer creating the above trace a very bumpy ride.
A "Rose" (from up north England) "1896 'AK' " (one of my favorities? Well, I've done it more then once). 9-10% sugars, yet that end gravity of 1.019 (it'll go down 2 or 3 points yet) can hardly be called "thin". The other big change (in only the last 10 years) is we have these "heritage" malts available to use now, "Chavallier", "Plumage Archer", even special edition "Maris Otter" (in use from 1975) that have been malted similar to methods used before 1980. And they finish at high gravities. As would be "normal" for earlier British beers.
Without the sugar this would have been finishing in the twenties (I was mashing slightly lower as well, at 65°C). The yeast helps too (for a higher gravity), this one being a low attenuative "Yorkshire" yeast: A particularily heavy cropping yeast which has been giving the (common style) "Tilt" hydrometer creating the above trace a very bumpy ride.
huckdavidson
Well-Known Member
Would the yeast poop out resulting in an even higher FG if the sugar weren't inverted first or does it even matter? Might depend on yeast strain... (not suggesting that you have or have not used invert)
You don't think they would stop using sugar if they knew what you do?
Sugar is used for many reasons and I brew most beers with sugar for more reasons than authenticity. I've learned a lot from trying different methods of brewing and in other disciplines.
For a lot of years, most breweries in Britain were designed to brew with sugar as a major ingredient.
Nay! The yeast is perfectly capable of dealing with sucrose. @DuncB posted something on yeast being used to "invert" sugar (English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?). But glucose is supposed to have some influence on "esters" - not that I can tell - but that Rose AK recipe calls for "white sugar" (unusual ingredient for 19th C.) so I replaced it with corn sugar (which they certainly did use in brewing later in the 19th C.). The replacement was purely a whim of mine ... no evidence for it.
If I remember rightly, the yeast releases "invertase" externally to deal with sucrose, and so sucrose is consumed before the maltose in the wort. The yeast splits maltose internally (into glucose).
The other sugar in the Rose AK recipe is "Brewers' Invert Sugar No.2" for which I did use one of my (infamous?) emulations (no inversion and no caramelisation). But I'm not to talk of that or I may start a bun fight!
huckdavidson
Well-Known Member
That's interesting, so inverting the sucrose doesn't stress the yeast affecting the further processing of the remaining sucrose and maltose in the wort? Just out of curiosity then what is the mechanism by which a yeast stops processing sugars? Why do some yeast finish at a higher gravity than others?
DuncB
Well-Known Member
Malt is a polysaccharide. Made of many sugars joined together. Some yeasts have enzymes that can chop that polysaccharide up into fully metabolisable pieces, ie a saison yeast.
Others such as Windsor can't do this as can't break maltotriose bond ( I think).
Some yeasts can only metabolise glucose such as metschinkowa reukaufii. Less metabolism means more sugar taste and body.
Yeasts also stop at certain alcohol levels so seen with very high gravity ales.
I've seen one suggestion that it may disadvantage yeast cropping down the generations? But I don't repeatedly repitch my yeast anyway. I reckon "inverting" was a handy way to break into the sugar refining chain and have a product in handy syrup form rather than a crystalising mess. More "reasons" for inverting was invented at a later date ("hind-sight").
Modern refining doesn't fit into the myths so well, so the majority of breweries switched to sucrose syrups in the 1960s (in Britian that is). See also:
http://edsbeer.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-invert-sugar.html
As for "Final Gravity":
(Much the same as @DuncB said...):
Yeast can ferment "trisaccharide" (like malt-triose) but some yeasts better than others. I generally look for attenuation rates of about 68-70% to suggest the yeast is incapable of digesting malt-triose, through to 80% suggesting it has no bother. Some yeasts can breakdown longer chain saccharide (var. diastaticus or sta-1 positive strains) and these may have figures higher then 80%.
That "malt-triose" stuff is all conjecture, but it suits me well enough. There's no hard-and-fast boundaries in reality.
Here's an example; the yeast hits FG like a ton of bricks:
There was a lot of sugar in that recipe, hence the FG still got fairly low. Note FG in less than 36 hours.
Good for you I don’t use sugar in my British beers your choice my choice.
McMullan
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Brewing is about one thing, fundamentally; producing alcohol. That's what brewers do. They produce alcoholic beverages. Beer. Adding sugar boosts alcohol production with minimal effort in the brewery. Although once a highly valued commodity, when first imported to Europe from Asia, and far too expensive to use in brewing, cane sugar production increased (prices went down) due to slavery. Then supplies further increased (prices got even cheaper) for Britain exclusively, in Europe, because the British navy blockaded supplies to the rest of Europe during the Napoleonic wars. "Ahoy, what shall we do with all this surplus sweet stuff, you bilge-sucking scallywags?" So supplies increased dramatically for British brewers and others. "Sink me, you scurvy dogs!" It worked surprisingly well. It boosted the alcohol content and added a luscious character that complemented English ales at the time. That's all it was, primarily. No need to complicate life. Just a fortuitous discovery by chance events really.
At some point, using invert (monosaccharide) additions became the thing to do. Actually for quite obvious reasons as it transpired back then, not just today. It's documented in the literature from the 19th and early 20th century. It's not just a 'cheat' attenuation booster, to produce more ethanol, it's a fermentation (yeast) aid. Adding 10-30% fermentables as sucrose (a disaccharide), on top of the approximately 5% from grain, adds a significant biological burden (stress) on yeast cells, and risks a classic home brew 'twang'. They actually need to do some work (biochemistry) to process it. They can't break the laws of physics. Do the biology, trying not to assume - like so many brewers do - that yeast cells are just tiny little particles converting sugar to ethanol and CO2. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Biology, that is. Anyway, invert (monosaccahride) is much easier to process therefore requires much less work by the yeast cells. Not that anyone needs to know about it. You don't. But the fact is, British brewers in the 19th clearly realised, quite fortuitously, that adding cane invert to brewery worts was beneficial in terms of increasing attenuation and adding subtle flavour characteristics reflecting elements of already established tastes based on widely used cane sugar. It was documented in their publications.
If we use refined sugar (sucrose, from cane, beet or whatever - it's all the same thing, sucrose), it imparts practically zero flavour. It's essentially pure sucrose. If we use invert from refined sugar, again, it imparts practically zero flavour. But you'll get a better fermentation, a beer that conditions sooner and yeast that are better for repitching. Think about it, from the perspective of a brewer. It's why so many breweries, including big macros, use monosaccharide additions in one form or another today. It's standard practice in many breweries. Purist all-grain home brewers have simply been in denial about the benefits of sugar additions. Ironic really, because all all-grain fermentable sugars in wort end up as a form of the monosaccharide glucose. More biology.
So where does the 'legendary' luscious character come from? Cane molasses, of course. Added by using unrefined cane sugar in the first place and/or adding cane molasses to invert made from refined or unrefined sucrose. More molasses produces more flavour. Taste some. It's not rocket science. It's what the last remaining UK-based manufacturer of British brewing inverts does, which has been detailed sufficiently already and interpreted to varying degrees of accuracy by a number of home brewers for years. There's nothing new to see here. It's all old hat.
Summary: Inverted sucrose (cane, beet or whatever, in reality) boosts attenuation (alcohol production), helps promote a better fermentation, a beer that conditions sooner and yeast that are better for repitching. Adding cane molasses adds a lusciousness that complements the subtle complexities of traditional English ales.
It's only beer. It's not supposed to be complicated. Why some need to complicate the world only they know.
At some point, using invert (monosaccharide) additions became the thing to do. Actually for quite obvious reasons as it transpired back then, not just today. It's documented in the literature from the 19th and early 20th century. It's not just a 'cheat' attenuation booster, to produce more ethanol, it's a fermentation (yeast) aid. Adding 10-30% fermentables as sucrose (a disaccharide), on top of the approximately 5% from grain, adds a significant biological burden (stress) on yeast cells, and risks a classic home brew 'twang'. They actually need to do some work (biochemistry) to process it. They can't break the laws of physics. Do the biology, trying not to assume - like so many brewers do - that yeast cells are just tiny little particles converting sugar to ethanol and CO2. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Biology, that is. Anyway, invert (monosaccahride) is much easier to process therefore requires much less work by the yeast cells. Not that anyone needs to know about it. You don't. But the fact is, British brewers in the 19th clearly realised, quite fortuitously, that adding cane invert to brewery worts was beneficial in terms of increasing attenuation and adding subtle flavour characteristics reflecting elements of already established tastes based on widely used cane sugar. It was documented in their publications.
If we use refined sugar (sucrose, from cane, beet or whatever - it's all the same thing, sucrose), it imparts practically zero flavour. It's essentially pure sucrose. If we use invert from refined sugar, again, it imparts practically zero flavour. But you'll get a better fermentation, a beer that conditions sooner and yeast that are better for repitching. Think about it, from the perspective of a brewer. It's why so many breweries, including big macros, use monosaccharide additions in one form or another today. It's standard practice in many breweries. Purist all-grain home brewers have simply been in denial about the benefits of sugar additions. Ironic really, because all all-grain fermentable sugars in wort end up as a form of the monosaccharide glucose. More biology.
So where does the 'legendary' luscious character come from? Cane molasses, of course. Added by using unrefined cane sugar in the first place and/or adding cane molasses to invert made from refined or unrefined sucrose. More molasses produces more flavour. Taste some. It's not rocket science. It's what the last remaining UK-based manufacturer of British brewing inverts does, which has been detailed sufficiently already and interpreted to varying degrees of accuracy by a number of home brewers for years. There's nothing new to see here. It's all old hat.
Summary: Inverted sucrose (cane, beet or whatever, in reality) boosts attenuation (alcohol production), helps promote a better fermentation, a beer that conditions sooner and yeast that are better for repitching. Adding cane molasses adds a lusciousness that complements the subtle complexities of traditional English ales.
It's only beer. It's not supposed to be complicated. Why some need to complicate the world only they know.
McMullan
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So you make alcohol free beer?
DuncB
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McMullan
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I'm not sure about the procedures used when baking (or simmering) for extended times, to be honest. You'd have already inverted the coconut sucrose before baking. I'd have just added some cane molasses instead of heating for an hour or two or more. Something I had in my mind, but forget to add above, molasses are very nutritious, which is why yeast are cultured on the stuff commercially. Just adding invert (or sucrose) is like adding empty calories for the yeast. Another good reason to add molasses rather than heat for ages, in my mind.
If the citric acid addition lowers pH to circa 2.2, a 15 minutes gentle simmer can invert most sucrose. Further heating from that point can serve to first destroy the fructose, which has a melting point of 103C. The influence of further baking depends upon the water to sugar ratio, for the lower that ratio, the higher the boiling point of the solution.
I invert with a ratio of water:sucrose (granulated white refined cane sugar) of 1:2. The water is first titrated with HCl to pH 4.4 to eliminate all alkalinity. This mixture will be close to saturation at 70C, hazy white and not perfectly translucent. At that temperature, more acid is added to reduce pH to between pH 2.2 and 2, with heat applied together with stirring. The mixture begins to clear as the sucrose starts inverting to more soluble glucose and fructose. After several minutes, typically fifteen, the mixture begins to take on a slight straw colour and I take this to be the end point of inversion of the sucrose. Then I will add darker sugars if a darker invert is desired, which will ordinarily slow the conversion, particularly if the added content has a proportion of sucrose, such as molasses. after a few minutes the process is stopped by placing the pan into cold water in the kitchen sink, and the job completed with a gram or two of sodium bicarbonate.
DuncB
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I play your Yorkshire square fermenting on a continuous loop on the television.
No finer programming available.
I wouldn't have dared tread back in time as far as @McMullen: Napoleonic Wars* well predates even "Brewers' Invert Sugars". The sugars brewers would often use would be the dregs in the bottom of the barrels ... The extra messy stuff full of "molasses" that had drained off (but not entirely!) the crystallised sucrose during shipment. Most of the "molasses" had been tapped off before shipment; the sugar barrels having been stashed aside for a few weeks to let most of the molasses drain (assuming it was from the W. Indies we're talking about). They wanted the molasses for making rum!
Interestingly, shortly after the Napoleonic Wars, the UK government made sugar in beer (along with assorted other junk and poisons) illegal. Sugar wasn't allowed back in until 1847 (some earlier brief exceptions to allow for bad grain harvests), and wasn't used much in beer until after 1870/80 (from reading too much stuff by Ron Pattinson instead of doing something useful ... according to my partner). Obviously the "freedom" to add what they liked to beer, including cheap sugar, during the Napolean times was an excuse to add any old (sometimes toxic) junk to beer, and the abuse had to stop?
BTW: Molasses isn't a specific thing, it's the "mother liquor", a mix of "stuff" from which the sucrose is crystallised. It still contains a lot of sucrose, perhaps 60%, along with glucose and fructose (like in Invert Sugar, which is helping keep it liquid) and assorted cr&p including caramelised (burnt!) sugar and even the ever-popular Maillard Reaction products (they weren't going to be explained for over a century, but that doesn't mean they weren't there). Lime was used during the early stages of sugar extraction which incidentally helped create the alkaline environment favored by Maillard Reactions (mention of Maillard reaction products makes me cringe, but I know their presence is popular in brewing discussions at the moment).
That's really getting to the limits of my current sugar knowledge; hence I started this post with "further back than I (should of) dare tread".
*For the telly watchers: That's the time the BBC series "Sharpe" (Sean Bean) and his soldiering antics in Spain/Portugal is set.
Interestingly, shortly after the Napoleonic Wars, the UK government made sugar in beer (along with assorted other junk and poisons) illegal. Sugar wasn't allowed back in until 1847 (some earlier brief exceptions to allow for bad grain harvests), and wasn't used much in beer until after 1870/80 (from reading too much stuff by Ron Pattinson instead of doing something useful ... according to my partner). Obviously the "freedom" to add what they liked to beer, including cheap sugar, during the Napolean times was an excuse to add any old (sometimes toxic) junk to beer, and the abuse had to stop?
BTW: Molasses isn't a specific thing, it's the "mother liquor", a mix of "stuff" from which the sucrose is crystallised. It still contains a lot of sucrose, perhaps 60%, along with glucose and fructose (like in Invert Sugar, which is helping keep it liquid) and assorted cr&p including caramelised (burnt!) sugar and even the ever-popular Maillard Reaction products (they weren't going to be explained for over a century, but that doesn't mean they weren't there). Lime was used during the early stages of sugar extraction which incidentally helped create the alkaline environment favored by Maillard Reactions (mention of Maillard reaction products makes me cringe, but I know their presence is popular in brewing discussions at the moment).
That's really getting to the limits of my current sugar knowledge; hence I started this post with "further back than I (should of) dare tread".
*For the telly watchers: That's the time the BBC series "Sharpe" (Sean Bean) and his soldiering antics in Spain/Portugal is set.
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