Can anyone here confirm that a good quality candi sirup for brewing needs to contain ammonia caramel (I think it fixes the color or something like that). And does D-180 contain it?
No I cannot, but from what I gather, 150c-d caramels are produced using ammonia, which is the reason they’re (contested but still) suspect carcinogens.
D-180 is a proprietary caramel blend, probably comprised of various types of commercial/industrial caramels. Regardless of Denny’s endorsement (halfway down this page), my guess is that would contain at least some ammonia.
You want good quality caramel? Make your own. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s fun.
I’m interested to see where this topic goes.
I wasn’t aware that caramel was a constituent in the syrups. That strikes me as odd.
I was under the impression the ingredients were beet sugar and water, as well as some rather benign chemicals used to facilitate the transformation.
Then please tell me how to make 180 SRM caramel. And no sinamar.
I can’t afford to make my own syrup for this beer. Brewing this requires surgical precision. There’s a competition to be won. Any health issues will unfortunately be assessed as unavoidable collateral damage.
Unfortunately, like was said above, the CSI stuff is proprietary and shrouded in marketing. I don’t think anyone can confirm your original request.
Is this for the Rochefort 4? I thought you were using your extra dark Belgian syrup?
It is, yes. But I get conflicting messages. “You have to get the syrup with ammonia caramel, otherwise you’ll never win”, and “you may die if you use the syrup with ammonia caramel”…
Also, on a more serious note, if you see “colouring agent: E150c” in the ingredients list, is that basically similar to DAP added during the manufacturing process of the syrup, where the ammonia evaporates, or is it added afterwards to the syrup?
I’ve never heard of ammonia caramel. I’ve used all of the CSI syrups with great success.
Meaning you have won competitions or you are still alive?
Success = tasty beers. And I’m still alive!
There is are two unverified assumptions at play here:
1.) Candi syrups contain these caramels.
2.) These caramels are bad for you.
I can’t verify either of those.
Let’s take the site you linked, which doesn’t seem to indicate any ill effects health wise, but lists daily intake for C and D caramels as 200mg/kg body weight. Let’s use me:
I’m 220 lbs. So > ~ 100 kg.
200 mg/kg * 100 kg = 20000 mg = 20 g
Let’s say you use 2 lb of Candi syrup in a recipe and assume that they are entirely composed of these caramels:
2 lb. = 907195 mg = 907 g
5 gallons of beer = ~53 beers
907 g/53 beers = 17 g/beer = 170 mg/kg
So, assuming that 200 mg/kg is a health threshold, you could use up to probably 2.5 lbs with no ill effects. Given this criteria you could drink 1 beer per day brewed with that amount of ammonium caramel.
Again this assumes that the syrups are made of 100% of these caramels. I haven’t seen anything that says these types of caramel are even a constituent ingredient.
AFAIK these syrups are made from beet sugar and water with some chemicals of course to facilitate the process, stability, etc.
I have never been able to make anything nearly as good as what I can buy.
I’m kinda mystified at your speculation. How do you have any idea what they use?
I’ve seen manufacturing specs from Candico (which produces some of these products and similar products) which do not identify ammonia as an ingredient. I would not be surprised if an ammonia-based compound is used as a coloring agent during the boil much as brewers in days past used other high ph compounds to color adjust their beers. Ammonia also plays a role with amino acids under heat which may also play a role in flavor development in those syrups.
From CSI (The products are great but keep in mind their recipes and ingredients are proprietary):
“Our syrups are made using only food grade natural ingredients and traditional thermal methods.”
CSI discreetly tells people that their syrups are of higher quality than continental syrups so I would assume that if a company like Candico is not using ammonia based compounds, than CSI probably isn’t either.
This is from one of the generic brand of the largest Belgian brew website: https://www.brouwland.com/content/docs/007/007%20Suikers/007.086.2-007.089.6_SPEC_EN_Candy%20syrup%20liquid%20dark.pdf
E150c is ammonia caramel.
This is from Castle: http://www.castlemalting.com/Publications/SugarProducts/CandimicLightFT_en.pdf - no mention of ammonia caramel
I’m gonna contact someone I know at candisyrup.com and ask them if they’d like to comment.
To answer your OP: I’d say No and No.
I feel like I am in a Foodbabe discussion. If they can give data on this, great.
Agreed! Sent an email. We’ll see if he has time to respond.