What do you get when you ferment HM candy sugar syrup with WY3787 ??

[bill2penn]

I recently made a batch of a Westy 12 clone based on this thread. It's still aging but it tastes really good so far. I made my own candy syrup for it using a modification of this thread's sugar #5 syrup. I substituted WYeast yeast nutrient for the DAP and only used half the amount. I did it a couple times so I had extra candy syrup around. This is a very dark syrup but has a nice range of mellow flavors. It's not burnt at all. Not being one to waste anything, and being an avid yeast rancher, I made up a solution of the extra syrup with water to OG of 1.090 and pitched a good slurry of WY 3787 into my 2 L Erlenmeyer with a stir bar and stirred it on my stir plate for a couple weeks at 72-76F. It fermented quite vigorously for a week or so. Then I let it sit undisturbed for several more weeks while it cleared nicely. Finally I decided to check out what I had made. The FG is down to 1.012 and it actually tastes very good! I let others test it without saying what it was. My wife says it tastes like a good sherry so I've filled our decanter with it. We'll keep it around as an after-dinner sherry.
Now what do you call this? I guess it's a faux mead of some sort since the candy syrup is mostly invert sugar (like honey) and there isn't any hops or anything else in it. However, it does taste like a really fine sweet sherry.
This was a fun, and very cheap experiment. I will probably do it again at some point.
Bill

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

The beginning stage of rum?

 

[macmclean]

I may have to make this myself. Any advice? Was your product cidery from all the sugar? I'm also thinking about adding some Hungarian oak cubes.

 

[Germelli1]

It sounds like rum before it hits the still! Interesting!

 

[bill2penn]

It's not cidery at all. The cooked sugar syrup is mostly invert sugar (glucose and fructose) after the cooking rather than sucrose. Too much sucrose will give you cidery product. The oak cubes may be very nice addition. It's certainly a cheap experiment if you do any yeast ranching at all.
Bill

I may have to make this myself. Any advice? Was your product cidery from all the sugar? I'm also thinking about adding some Hungarian oak cubes.

 

[macmclean]

I've got a Patersbier going with 3787 now. I'll harvest the yeast and try this in a couple weeks.