Forgo crystal and use only invert?

[cire]

Invert and caramel are different products. Invert sugars are glucose and fructose as is included in the subject title. Pedantic maybe, but I've stuck strictly to the subject matter here, else the people may read and adopt the opinion that inverts sugars are a product of the Maillard reaction which in fact creates another product FROM sugars.

There is lots to be said about the Mailard reaction and what it can add to beer, but it does not make sugar.

 

[Miraculix]

Invert and caramel are different products. Invert sugars are glucose and fructose as is included in the subject title. Pedantic maybe, but I've stuck strictly to the subject matter here, else the people may read and adopt the opinion that inverts sugars are a product of the Maillard reaction which in fact creates another product FROM sugars.

There is lots to be said about the Mailard reaction and what it can add to beer, but it does not make sugar.

Yes true, but in my experience, when talking about invert number 1-4 in the UK in the context of beer brewing, an invert is ment that derived it's colour from maillard reaction and not from the addition of darker sugars after the inversion took place. Same goes for Belgian Candi syrup, although the process of it's creation is a different one.

 

[cire]

Ragus are as far as I know, currently the only commercial producers of Invert sugars for brewers in UK. I have in the past bought their products through their agent, Bako. However, as they are sold in 25kg, it isn't practical, so I make my own.

The Ragus site is very informative, but it seems to frequently altered with little consideration of what other information it contains. However, this page includes a section titled, "How is brewing sugar produced?"

It is somewhat brief, but the highest temperature during the process is 70C, unlikely to produce much of a Maillard reaction.

There is no technical reason to not invoke a Maillard reaction, but it isn't essential to make invert sugar for brewing.

 

[Miraculix]

Ragus are as far as I know, currently the only commercial producers of Invert sugars for brewers in UK. I have in the past bought their products through their agent, Bako. However, as they are sold in 25kg, it isn't practical, so I make my own.

The Ragus site is very informative, but it seems to frequently altered with little consideration of what other information it contains. However, this page includes a section titled, "How is brewing sugar produced?"

It is somewhat brief, but the highest temperature during the process is 70C, unlikely to produce much of a Maillard reaction.

There is no technical reason to not invoke a Maillard reaction, but it isn't essential to make invert sugar for brewing.

That is strange. Maybe it was used to be done but not any more?

Maybe @Northern_Brewer wants to chime in here? Do you got any information regarding that matter?


I know the taste difference from personal experience and maillard reaction darkened invert tastes completely different than one that has been coloured by adding molasses.

 

[cire]

There is no reason not to include products from a Maillard reaction in beer to add flavor or color.

The Maillard reaction would be prevalent in beers from directly heated coppers, while steam would unlikely cause it.

No doubt in the past there wasn't the technology or instrumentation to closely control inversion of sugar as can be done today and in 1900 there was the famous arsenic poisoning incident. Back in those times, there were many more sugar producers than today.

There is a lot of variation in molasses, which has significant variation on its taste in beer.

 

[cire]

Brewed on Thursday using a mix of commercial and homemade inverts. Back right is 500g, a little over a pound, of Ragus #1 Invert cut from a 25 kg block to show its color and thought it might be helpful to show

In the foreground is unmalted barley that has been washed and absorbed some water in the process. This is spread on the glass turntable in a microwave a handful at a time to be torrified. This takes about 2 minutes at full power for the water to turn to steam, gelatinize and burst the corn, as seen in the jug, back left.

Unmalted adjuncts added to the mash pair well with invert, possibly because the long chain carbohydrates they produce help balance the higher fermentability of invert sugars in the beer.

The recipe, if of interest.

50 litres 1043 OG
2 hour mash, 2 hour sparge to 1003.
3 kg Dutch Pale Malt
1.5 kg Irish Pale Malt
1.5 kg Vienna Malt
0.5 kg Flaked Maize
0.4 kg Torrified Barley
0.15 kg malt extract.
0.5 kg #1 Solid Invert by Ragus
0.8 kg #2 Invert Syrup homemade

20g Northdown 90 mins
40g First Gold 90 mins
60g First Gold 10 mins
40g Hallertau Hersbrucker @ 80C and steeped for 30 minutes.

The malt extract was some that was getting old and needed using, although it was a common ingredient by many breweries to increase production or gravity when already at capacity. Known as DCL it was produced n times past in large volumes in Scotland for distillers, brewers and health of individuals. DCL was Distillers Company Limited.

Edited to correct the omission of the word extract.

 

[cire]

A picture of the beer from the above recipe, three days into bottle conditioning. It spent a week in the FV before being racked into a plastic pressure barrel for 2 further weeks.

It shows how the commercial Ragus #1 invert adds little or no color, as it also seems to be the case with my own #2 in this case, to be also used in pale ales.