Hi guys, I am new in the forum, but I've read a lot and done some experiments in brewing.
So, belgian candy is made through mailard reaction.
Normal caramel is just heated sugar, pyrolysis.
Anyway, is better work with inverted sugar, because it's more fluid.
To make inverted sugar. Better option, im my opinion:
Inversion: 1 kg sucrose, 20 g lemon juice (1g citric acid). 250 g Water. Scale it, however you need. On a Mason Jar do a minimal hole on the lid, just to release the pressure. Some water inside a pressure cooker, in 10 min, at 120 C, you have a good rate inverted sugar. Just don't put the hot Mason Jar under water...let it cool at room temperature.
Caramel. After that you can caramelize it in a pan, just don't put too much heat on that, go slowly. If it burns, gets acrid taste.
Belgian candy. Add 5 g of protein (whey protein or similar, if you go to the gym) along with the sucrose, water, lemon juice... Or if you are using beet sugar, it probably have enough. Another option is substitute the water for wort, that you can previously separete from a regular batch and frozen. Even DME should work.
Then, pressure cooker... Instead of cooling the inverted sugar, wait stop bobbling. Carefully, open the lid and put something to low the pH. Slaked lime, bakin soda, whatever. How much? Enough to visually start browning. Or if you have an ph meter, around pH 9.
You can stop there or if you want darker, back to the pressure or in a pan, like the caramel.
I already made some tests, and works. Probably in march, maybe april, I should make two consecutives batches, differing only in two ingredients, regular caramel and homemade belgian candy. I will post the results, if everything goes well.