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Author Topic: Making Invert Sugar: table sugar vs. raw sugar  (Read 6558 times)

Offline nateo

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Re: Making Invert Sugar: table sugar vs. raw sugar
« Reply #15 on: December 20, 2012, 03:27:20 pm »
This topic is kind of a can of worms. If you just want the yeast to be able to ferment the sugar more easily, you can invert table sugar with citric acid. I have a .pdf somewhere of an article with a recipe for industrial-grade invert sugar for brewing, written in England about 100 years ago. The author said to just invert your own refined table sugar, and that buying invert syrup was a waste of money. Some brewers used inorganic acids, but the author said citric gave the best flavor.

Now, when we get into "candi sugar" things get crazy, and there are a lot of Maillard reactions from the beet molasses interacting with the bases used in refining.

Neither of those processes result in caramelization (because if it's caramel, you can't sell it as "sugar" and it's basically waste at that point.) So the browning you get from heating the sugar on your stovetop won't taste like the browning in dark candi syrup, and it won't taste like molasses either.

I've made hundreds of batches of candi syrup, and haven't noticed any flavor difference using table sugar vs demerara. When you get into the dark brown sugar, then it makes an obvious difference. But "raw" sugar is so similar to refined sugar, in a beer, you'd be hard-pressed to ID the specific differences.
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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Making Invert Sugar: table sugar vs. raw sugar
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2012, 04:41:09 pm »
Had limited access for a while.

This guy has some opinions (his) and ways to make the different invert sugars.
http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert
Jeff Rankert
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