Since I’ve become enamored with English ales and it sounded like a fun brewing/cooking evening’s project, I decided to give it a go.
I chose to try the first of the two methods in the link since the ingredients were easily obtainable or on hand. I had lactic acid and the local supermarket sold a 4 lb. package of Sugar-In-The-Raw turbinado for $6.65. (No sense in making just a little) So, recipe was:
4 pints water
4 lbs. Sugar-in-the Raw
8 ml. lactic acid (88%)
.25 lb. corn sugar
Aside: I didn’t have a remote reading thermometer but my quick read, pen style thermometer worked fine (Javelin Pro, similar to Thermopen).
Bring water to boil, turn off heat and stir in sugar. Add lactic and resume slowly heating to 240 deg F. This takes a lot longer than you would think (an hour +). First you have to boil off most of the water. Then it gets to 231.8 F and sticks there for like 20 minutes while it makes funny looking bubbles. I’m guessing that is when the sugar is inverting. Then it stops bubbling and slowly increases to 240F.
At that point it was probably invert #1 but I was going for invert #2. So I stuck the pot in our convection oven set for 240 and checked it every 20 minutes. After 2 hours it was at 243*F and looking nice and dark. I poured it in pint and ½ pint jars and pressure cooker canned it at 240-250 for 30 minutes. Should stay good for months (years?).
I think about SRM 34. It looks a little darker in the photo than in person. This was looking down thru 5 cm of syrup at a white sunlit background.
I ended up with 4.9 lbs. of syrup from 4.25 lbs of sugar so some water got bound in. That calculates to ~86% sugar. And turbinado is ~96% sugar and 4% impurities. (It’s that 4% that gives it the flavors that you’re after). So, .86 x .96 = .82 or 82% yield for entering into BeerSmith.
Now for the flavor. Mmmm, delicious! Definitely lots of raisin and honey with a little caramel and a buttery mouthfeel (not flavor).
I tried it at 10% in a ordinary/best bitters on Monday. I’ll report on it in 3-4 weeks.
Looking forward to hearing how it turns out. I’ve been using unholymess’s dilution method, but I’ve heard making it from scratch is better.
I know someone from work who makes his own candi syrup. Pretty much just like invert, but he uses DAP nutrient to provide the ammonia to “fix” the color.
Thanks for posting. I actually am planning on doing this over the weekend to put in an English Pale ale from the shut up about Barclay Perkins blog. I have a big bag of turbinado so I’m ready to go.
I like the trick of holding it at 240 in the oven.
Very nice write-up and the results looks very similar to what I get from the Invert #2 method (which was my favorite for sure). I also like the oven holding-temp method (why didn’t I think of that?? :D).
Look forward to hear how it turned out. A few improvements to the method: 1)Corn sugar is unnecessary. We’re making invert syrup, not caramel. 2) You can cut the water in half; boiling off the excess water wastes a lot of time. 3) You can add 1/2 the sugar and all the acid to the water while initially heating the water and add the rest of the sugar after boiling; no need to wait until boiling to start inverting the syrup.
Early results on 10% in an English Bitters brewed on 2/6:
Really good tasting FG sample. Nice rich flavor.
Much better attenuation with Lallemand ESB yeast than the last English Bitter brewed with that yeast. 1.009 vs. 1.015 Though some (much?) of that improvement could be due to lower mash temp.
Beer is cold crashing now. Then gel fine and bottle carb. I’ll report back when it’s ready to drink. Cheers!
Thanks. I used to think this would be too much effort with the need for lactic acid or cream of tartar, but I think I’ll give it a shot considering I have lactic on hand and could use an afternoon activity with all this rain coming down the pipe.
We make syrups for cocktails and they last for months in the fridge. Add a small amount of high proof alcohol and they will last indefinitely in the fridge.
It’s five weeks since bottling and the Ordinary Bitter brewed with the invert syrup (9.5%) is delicious. There is a little raisin and honey and the smooth buttery mouthfeel is there as well. Can’t wait to try it in more English styles. Are there any other recommendations from the Forum?
Try the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins! blog. http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/. So many tantlizing choices. I made a 5% mild, Kid XXX, from there that was delicious although I was unable to make invert no. 3. I’m planning to make a 1987 Oldham Mild next, one with invert no. 1 per recipe and one with my remaining invert no. 2.5.
If you ever brew for an event where there’s enough beer drinkers to kill a 5.4 gallon pin, I’d highly recommend serving on cask. Though they’re still not cheap, the current dollar/pound exchange rate has brought the price of casks down. (http://www.ukbrewing.com/)
Something I still want to try but haven’t gotten around to is a British IPA. I’ve had a fresh Samuel Smith’s IPA, and it was incredible, but I still haven’t gotten around to trying to recreate that beer.
