Old recipes and ingredients

[teal]

Been reading a lot on Shut Up About Barclay Perkins.

Love the blog and have been thinking I'd like to give some of their old recipes a go.

Couple of questions.

1. Often the recipe mentions "Invert Sugar 2" or "Invert Sugar 1"

I don't know what that is - any idea?

2. Lots of those old recipes have long boil times.

180 minutes which is 3x what I'm used to. How important is that boil time?

My interests run to Stout and Scotch ales and they have a TON of them.

 

[Haputanlas]

The longer boil times increases Maillard reactions. This will create very specific flavors and characteristics required for many of those recipes (Especially the Scotch ales). I typically like to boil longer than normal (90-120 minutes). It gives a maltier and more rich character.

Although, there are many styles and recipes that don't work well with this method. If they say to do this, then do it.

Not sure about the invert sugars, but a quick search of Homebrewtalk gives some good results:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/invert-sugar-21645/

There are plenty more if you do a search.

 

[Haputanlas]

Maillard Reactions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
http://homebrew.stackexchange.com/q...tion-and-why-should-i-care-what-a-duck-thinks