Is It Possible To Demystify Invert Sugar?

[Gytaryst]

I am the King of long-windedness and the last person who should complain about this.

BUT . . .

Is it possible to summarize the subject of invert sugar in one factual, scientifically backed, paragraph that anyone can understand?

I understand... okay, I don't "understand"... I've read that invert sugar is a process (hydrolysis?) that turns sucrose, (which brewers yeast can't eat), into a mixture of 50% glucose and 50% fructose. And maybe that's wrong??? That's just what I've been able to put together from the hundreds and hundreds of pages, articles, blogs, forum threads, youtube videos, webpages, pdf files, and other confusing and often contradictory sources available on the subject.

One person says, "To make invert sugar do X Y and Z." The next guy says "To make invert sugar NEVER, under any circumstances, should you ever do X Y and Z." First, you need a specific pot made of a rare metal that has been hammered, not forged, by pigmies in the southern part of asia. Don't use the pots the northern pigmies make - the metal is all wrong. Then take exactly 8 million sugar crystals and while standing on one leg and flapping your left arm like a chicken, add it to exactly two hundred drops of distilled water. boil at 236.6751118 degrees for 19 minutes and 23.45 seconds. If you go a millisecond over or under the batch is ruined. Check you barometer and local weather station often throughout the process.

... or you can just toss some table sugar into the boil kettle and part of it, some of it, most of it, hell maybe all of it will possibly invert. Or maybe it won't - depending on which pages, articles, blogs, forum threads, youtube videos, webpages, pdf files, and other confusing and often contradictory sources you're following.

 

[madscientist451]

Who ever said you were long-winded?

 

[Gytaryst]

Who ever said you were long-winded?

I hear the whispers, see the smirks.

 

[Lefou]

I hardly see any "mystery" in understanding simple hydrolysis.
Why is this difficult to understand?
Sucrose is a disacharride and will break down into its two component forms with the addition of water and heat. You can speed the process up with lemon juice or cream of tartar.
Furthermore, why bother to go to all the trouble if you have honey on hand? It's basically invert sugar (plus a few extras) that doesn't really need an extra addition of water.
Table sugar converted to invert sugar and honey can both be caramelized with added spice under high heat. It's not something that requires a lot of needless complication.

Long story short ... ignore Web dingbats like "The Food Babe". They just complicate stuff needlessly.

 

[Lefou]

I hear the whispers, see the smirks.

There's medicine for that ...

 

[day_trippr]

The operating premise is invalid to begin with. Table sugar, glucose, fructose, whatever, they're all "digestible" to brewers yeast...

"Yeast metabolize the different wort sugars in different ways. To consume the disaccharide sucrose, the yeast utilizes an enzyme called invertase, which works outside the cell to hydrolyze the molecule into its components — glucose and fructose. The glucose and fructose molecules are then transported through the cell wall and metabolized inside the cell. Conversely, maltose and maltotriose are transported into the cell first, and then are broken down into glucoses by the enzyme maltase."

I don't know where the whole "I gotta invert the sugar!" thing originated but frankly it looks like sweet snake oil from here...

Cheers!

 

[madscientist451]

You can make invert sugar out of refined table sugar, but if you start with raw sugar you get a different end result. There have been some homebrew level experiments with different kinds of sugar and the results have indicated there is a noticeable difference.
Here's an interesting blog post on the subject:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2009/06/refined-sugar-vs-invert-sugar.html

 

[bmaupin]

I agree to an extent. just raising temp to 237 only starts the process. how much conversion is achieved at 0, 5, 10, 60 minutes? how much at pH? how much when I threaten it with DAP?

 

[S-Met]

Long story short ... ignore Web dingbats like "The Food Babe". They just complicate stuff needlessly.

What's wrong with the Boof Dabe? She's been responsible for hours of entertainment. I loved her dissertation on the daners of microwaves. And all the dangers of beer. I mean, gmos are made by the love child of satan and darth Vader, isinglass is like fiberglass, carageenen is a super toxic lab created gmo rat poison extracted from beaver testicles and synthesized tickle me Elmo tears.

Without her blog, i would be in so much danger. I might not have spent so many hours laughing hysterically at such blind stupidity.