Some things about belgian beer

[Steve973]

I'm reading a new book called "Brew Like A Monk" and it discusses lots of things about belgian beers that I never knew before. The book says that the belgian candy sugar we can get at our homebrew stores (rocks) are not the same type of candy sugar that belgian brewers use. Apparently they use some kind of syrup form, and i have to check the book but I think I remember reading that it's derived from beet sugar. Would anyone happen to know where this might be available? Otherwise, I might make my own invert sugar. Who knows if the stuff we get at the store is merely crystallized table sugar, aka rock candy?

Secondly, belgian beer recipes are kept (surprisingly) quite simple. Usually, there are very few kinds of grain. They might use pils and chocolate malt, sugar, and hops. The sugar usually accounts for 10% or 20% of fermentable sugars. Of course, some recipes use special b, weat, etc, but brewers use this stuff sparingly. Too much of that kind of stuff interferes with the flavor and deviates from style. If people would like more detail, I'll pull some more specific stuff from the book.

I'm formulating a recipe for a five gallon batch that uses:
16 lbs of belgian pils
6 oz of chocolate
3 lbs of candy sugar (amber)
1 oz each of goldings and hallertauer
WLP550 yeast
OG 1.118
SRM 32
IBU 20

My calculations come from promash, but i wonder about the accuracy of the SRM prediction. Comments welcome.........

 

[Duvel]

but I think I remember reading that it's derived from beet sugar

Yeah beet sugar is more common than cane sugar in northern europe cos it grows here. When it's refined down however its chemical composition is exactly the same as cane sugar. Plain old sucrose. So if a chemist doesn't know the difference I'm sure your yeast won't either

Em is "candy" sugar just the same as inverted sugar? Or is it something different? Glucose (dextrose/corn sugar) or fructose or what?

 

[Steve973]

I'm not sure how Belgians process sugar to create candy sugar. You just use some citric acid and heat to split sucrose so the yeast doesn't have to do as much work.

 

[david_42]

I'm about 95% certain that Belgian candy is nothing more than "hard candy", which is a mixture of 2 parts cane/beet (sucrose) and one part corn syrup (fructose and dextrose). Beet and cane sugar are +99% identical.

You would let it carmelize (burn) slightly to get dark candy.

Hard Candy

Ingredients
3 3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water

Directions
Combine sugar, corn syrup and water in large saucepan. Cook on medium heat until sugar dissolves; stirring constantly. Stop stirring once sugar dissolves. Insert candy thermometer and bring to a boil until temperature reaches 310 degrees. Pour onto cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil and powdered sugar. Let cool completely, break and enjoy!

Or just dump the original ingredients into the wort.

 

[justbrewit]

basicly your just making brittle. i make peanut brittle all the time and its just about the same as your recipe

1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
peanuts

combine sugar and corn syrup, heat and stir until 295 degrees, and peanuts, continue to heat until you reach 310. pour onto cookie sheet to cool.

i'm sure you could do this same thing sans peanuts for your candy sugar. i'll bet it will work just fine. i've also seen corn syrup with brown sugar added, maybe this would be just a little better to use, i don't know! i'll stick to DME and molasses :cross:

 

[Steve973]

I've been reading some things that say candy sugar is invert sugar, and other places that say it's just sucrose, but I'm not sure.

On the other hand, what does everybody think about the SRM rating ProMash gives my prospective recipe?

 

[wild]

Here are the instructions I have for Making Candi Sugar for Belgian Brews:

Belgians are no strangers to adjuncts and one of their favorites is "Candi Sugar" which is basically invert sugar, or simple table sugar that is hydrolyzed -- table sugar transformed into glucose and fructose -- which speeds fermentation.

Some say that table sugar is fine, as a boiling wort is acidic enough to invert the sugar in the boil, but my opinion is that any unexpected change in chemistry is sure to detract from the authenticity of the style of Belgian you are trying to achieve. While I do not necessarily disagree with this viewpoint, it's my opinion that if you are trying to achieve a given style then you should probably try to use the ingredients and methods as closely as possible to what's called for.

That said, this is not much work to make "the real thing" so give it a try. Read on:

Method #1: From Brewmaxer http://www.brewmaxer.com/tips/invert_sugar.html

Invert sugar is made by mixing two parts sugar to one part water, adding two teaspoons lemon juice per pound of sugar. This is brought almost to a boil and held there for 30 minutes (do NOT allow to boil). This is poured into a sealable jar, sealed and cooled in refrigerator. This process hydrolyzes sucrose into glucose and fructose and speeds fermentation. Invert sugar should NOT be used to sweeten finished wine as it will encourage refermentation.
For 1 pound invert sugar:
• 2 cups finely granulated sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Expand the recipe above to make the amount required by a particular recipe. For example, to make 2½ pounds of invert sugar, use 5 cups sugar, 2½ cups water and 5 tsp lemon juice. Make the invert sugar at least 2 hours ahead of time (to give it sufficient time to cool).

Method #2
From Homebrewer's Digest:
http://hbd.org/franklin/public_html/docs/candi_sugar.html

Making Belgian Candi Sugar

Belgian brewers often use sugar in beer making to produce high alcohol beers without a thick body. They normally will use what is called Candi Sugar, but this stuff is pretty expensive, costing homebrewers around $4-5 per pound. Basically, candi sugar is ordinary white cane/beet sugar (sucrose) that has been modified by an 'inversion' process, producing 'invert sugar'.

You can make your own 'invert sugar' from ordinary table sugar with just a few simple items. Sucrose is made up of two simpler sugars (glucose and fructose) joined together. Yeast must spend time and effort breaking the joining bonds to allow them to get at the simple sugars they need for metabolism. This can be done chemically in an acid environment with heat. You will need a candy thermometer that goes up to about 350°F and a 2 qt saucepan. The ingredients are sugar, water, and citric acid to provide the acidic environment needed.
There are certain temperatures that relate to the process of candy making as shown in the table below. The terms refer to how the sugar will behave on cooling.

Term Used Temperature
Soft Ball 240°F
Hard Ball 260°F
Soft Crack 275°F
Hard Crack 300°F

To make a pound of Candi Sugar, measure a pound of sugar into the 2 qt saucepan. Add just enough water to make a thick syrup, and mix in a pinch of citric acid. Now bring to a boil and keep the temperature between hard ball and soft crack (260°-275°F). As you boil, evaporation will cause the temperature to begin rising, so have a small amount of water on hand and add a tablespoon whenever the temperature gets above 275°F.

The color will gradually change from clear to light amber to deep red as the boil proceeds. Light candi sugar is a very light amber-yellow. This can take as little as 15 minutes. Dark candi sugar is very deep red. This can take several hours. Once you are at the color you desire, you stop adding water and let the temperature rise to hard crack (300°F). Once it hits hard crack, turn off the heat and pour it into a shallow pan (like a cake pan) lined with a sheet of waxed paper. As it cools it will go rock hard, and you can break it into 'rocks', bag in a Ziplock bag and store in the freezer until you are ready to use it.

Wild

 

[david_42]

That's a really high SRM. Even Belgian Oud Bruins are in the 10-20 SRM range. Doubles and triples top out at 12/14. Most of the time they are in the 4-6 range.

Check your calculations, I suspect it should be 3.2

 

[Duvel]

Great post wild, a lot of help to me thanks

 

[Steve973]

Well, I made some candy sugar tonight. I bought turbinado sugar and citric acid and went with Method #2. It was simple and turned out very well, but it takes a while for a pound of sugar to carmelize. I think everybody should try it - it's inexpensive, easy, and it gives you a lot of control over color and flavor. An added bonus is that you know *exactly* what you're getting.

David, ProMash definitely tells me that i should expect 32.2 SRM. I have been playing around with the type of grain I'm going to add to the pilsner malt... If I have 16 lbs of 2L pils and a half pound of 150L crystal malt, ProMash tells me that's already 17.4 SRM. If I add 3 lbs of dark candy sugar (275L), it tells me that I'm at 56.7 SRM. I believe that you're right, and that the beer wouldn't be that dark with these ingredients, but I am unsure if either I'm doing something wrong, or if there's something wrong with ProMash's calculations. Any help is appreciated. Maybe you could put the same thing into your software and see what happens.

Thanks!

 

[david_42]

I'm just a little surprised that it's so high, that's 3 to 10 times the SRMs I'm used to seeing for Belgians. Considering manyt stouts come out around 40, you're exploring new territory.

 

[Steve973]

I hear ya there. I certainly don't want to have something that dark, and frankly, I don't see how these ingredients could make it at least as dark as a stout... I'm going for the darkness of a st bernardus 12 or of a rochefort 10.

 

[Dude]

Hmmm....intersting thread.

I'm saving this one for future use!

 

[kneemoe]

I'm going for the darkness of a st bernardus 12

mmmmmmmmmm the 12, the beer that made me give belgian brewers a second chance

 

[Beermaker]

I have made inverted sugar for my Westmalle Dubble clone. I used citric acid with my sugar mixture. I found a cool thing happens when you cook sugar....you can make any color you want, by cooking it a little longer. I will darken up. But be careful not to burn it. It adds nice color to the brewpot.

 

[Steve973]

Yep, we made some sugar the other day and it was a trick to keep the temperature in the right range during the inversion and caramelization process, but we got some fairly dark sugar that smells and tastes far better than the candy sugar that you buy at the homebrew store. I have a hard time estimating SRM or Lovibond values, but it looks darker than the amber stuff we bought for last time. After we brew (hopefully early december) I'll let everybody know how well it worked.

 

[Sir Sudster]

Great post Wild, much help to me also. Thanks.

 

[DeRoux's Broux]

steve, does the book have a recipe for a dubbel?

 

[Steve973]

The book doesn't concentrate on recipes. Rather, it concentrates on theories and methodology, ingredients, yeast, and other things. At the end of the book, they do give one recipe for each style. For the dubbel, the recipe is more complex than they have been describing in the book, so I don't know how "authentic" it will taste. Note that 30% of the grains are other than pilsner malt, so i'm not sure how good that'll be. Here's what they give:

belgian pils malt: 58.8%
wheat malt: 8.4%
belgian aromatic malt: 6.7%
belgian or german munich malt: 4.2%
caramunic: 3.4%
caravienna: 3.4%
special b: 3.4%
biscuit: 3.4%
dark candi sugar 8.4%
raisins at the end of the boil (4 oz for a 5 gallon batch)

styrian goldings: 90 minutes (7 IBU)
liberty: 60 minutes (4 IBU)

mash: 152F

boil: 90 minutes

yeast: wlp500

fermentation: start at 64F, 5-7 days

secondary: cold condition for 2 weeks

 

[DeRoux's Broux]

that's almost identical to a recipe in zymurgy a few issues back. other than the raisins, it had dark candy sugar.
thanks!

 

[Beermaker]

I made a Westmalle Dubble BD, let me know if you want that. My Westmalle is in a keg in the cooler aging for another few months. I will bring it to the meeting to try out. Along with my Delerium Tremons, and the Chimay Red. Oh yea, I also made a Karmeliet too.

 

[DeRoux's Broux]

I made a Westmalle Dubble BD, let me know if you want that. My Westmalle is in a keg in the cooler aging for another few months. I will bring it to the meeting to try out. Along with my Delerium Tremons, and the Chimay Red. Oh yea, I also made a Karmeliet too.

hell yea! post the Westmalle in the recipe/ingredients section. i'm sure the gang would love that one too!

thanks Corey!

 

[Beermaker]

I posted my Westmalle recipe in the recipe forums...... :cross:

 

[Steve973]

Hey everybody... I know that this thread has been dormant for a while, but I thought I'd give an update on the belgian strong ale that my friend and I brewed. It has been bottle conditioning for seven weeks, and it has fantastic flavor. However, (and this is the part that I wanted to talk about) it has only minimal carbonation.

A lot of the experienced people here know this already, but make sure you pay particular attention to the amount of time a beer has been in your fermenter, and pay attention to the alcohol level of your beer and the tolerance of your yeast. Give your heast about 1-2% headroom for alcohol tolerance, and dose a fresh vial (or smack pack) of fresh yeast before bottling. There's not much worse (all-grain speaking) than having a nearly perfect beer that doesn't bottle condition properly! This is a time where I wish I had a corny keg to force carbonate!

 

[mscho1]

Does this process reduce the cidery flavor that can be caused by beet-cane sugar???

 

[Steve973]

I haven't gotten any cidery flavor, but I am not speaking from lots of experience. Some Belgian breweries use sucrose anyway. I've also heard that the acidity in your wort will invert the sucrose anyway.