Candi Syrup/Sugar fail v.3.5B(?) + Lessons learned

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I like strong beers and belgian beers and for a long time I’ve attached special interest in getting those rich, dark fruity, tootsie roll etc flavours.

i followed “how to make your own candi syrup” instructions for a long time, since before I had access to candi syrup the brand in my area. youre probably aware of the progression of these instructions:
mid 2000s - “acid + sugar and cook it”
early 2010s - “DAP + DME + etc and sugar”
mid-late 2010s - “DME + Lye + sugar + inversion stage and then maillard stages”

I followed(mostly) the latter yesterday and ended up with … results.

~500ml DISTILLED water
500g sucrose
1tsp DME
~20ml chinese lye water ( https://omnivorescookbook.com/kansui )
1tsp dextrose
PPE: safety goggles, long sleeved shirt, blue nitrile gloves

put down parchment paper for testing drops

  1. heat sucrose+dextrose+dme and water to 130C and kept there for 30 mins to invert the sugar (i only did about 10 mins at between 125C and 135C in total truth becuase i was way too gentle/slow in heating it as it kept bubbling over near the edge of my smallish pot.

  2. added 20ml of lye water and it predictably from my many uses of this with sugar turned brown instantly and began frothing even more violently. so i had to put the small pot in the sink and grab my big pot and i just dumped it in there.

  3. raised heat on the big pot aiming for the 135C to 145C range. gave it about 7 to 8 minutes and it started burning quickly on the bottom. noticeably burning/unpleasant smell throughout. puffs of smoke, not steam coming out of bubbling sugar liquid. smell was not nice so decided to end it. saw after there was a big area of black crud on the bottom of the pan and if i kept pushing it, it simply would have gotten worse.

  4. added this liquid to a WELL PRE-HEATED thick glass container and let it cool down for quite a while before lidding it. the result was a solid granular aerated dark brown sugar mass with some lighter and darker areas in it. taste is toffee with burnt elements in it. as a sugar i’d rate it “characterful but just okay”. ive actually made better tasting simple cooking toffee using this lye water and sugar method in the past.

problems:

  1. straight up lol i was lazy and i did not measure the pH of the kansui. K2CO3 has a pH of 11.6 according to the internet, it is 80% K2CO3 and 20% sodium bicarbonate. i am NOT a chemist at all, so literally i was just going on the word LYE written on it and assuming it has a high pH.

  2. i added the water in the hope that it would end up a syrup. this did not happen (you add the water at the end i figure). and in fact i believe the water with the sugar inhibited my trying to increase the temperature of the sugar which was exacerbated by 3.

  3. too small of a pot, should be a no-brainer but i watched sui generis brewing’s youtube video on how to make this and saw the pot he was using was about the same size as my pot, so i thought i’d use that. well, my sugar solution was bubbling and fizzing much higher than his throughout all the temps and i kept having to lower the oven burner’s heat and keep poking at the sugar bubbles with my thermometer probe to get them down. annoying and time wasting. for this 500g of sugar size attempt i would use a pot at least 4 litres in volume, but i’d say no harm in using an 8 to 10 litre one. i had no scorch marks on the small pot which actually has a thinner base than the big one, so was that from me pouring the sugar into the unheated big pot?

results:
i did not get a fruity or complex tasting sugar. i got something that tastes like skor toffee but less intense with a just faint (it has been dissipating since last night in truth) burnt carbon taste. it tastes like straightforward toffee.

next time/advice:
i feel the temptation to think “but what if i did X and/or Y next time??” and plan it out - but my immediate thoughts last night were “i am never doing this again”. it took about 2 full hours to do as the ramp-up time before inversion took FOREVER while accomplishing nothing really.

i think there is a growing consensus that this is one of those things that just is not worth it since candi syrup is not that expensive and is just such a solid product.

IF i did this again i’d just use the bigger pot, use only 100ml (arbitrary) of water at most to speed up the heating, i WOULD do the inversion for the full recommended 30 minutes, and then hope it doesnt scorch over 135 and the magic happens. would also consider carefully adding in water after i think it’s done to make it a syrup.

personally though this is a never again thing unless i’m being paid to make 100 litres of it to sell to some brewery for ??? $5000.

gimme some LIKES and i’ll post pics of it happening and after

3 Likes
2

Forget about candi sugar and just use white table sugar for your Belgians.

1 Like
3

That works fine for a Tripel/BGSA, but the majority of the flavor in a dubbel/quad/BDSA comes from dark Candi Syrup.

1 Like
4

Thanks for sharing your experience. For as much invert syrup as I use in my English ales, this is an experiment that I have been putting off for a long time, and will probably never get around to. Knowing me, I’ll just end up destroying a pot or two and end up with burnt toffee.

I wonder if there’s a simpler way to make this in an Instant Pot?

5

i would say try it, i think if you followed the modifications i suggested at the end there you’d do better potentially. i have done a lot of cooking (as i think almost everyone here has too) but for cooking i always use thick based stainless steel, it takes a ton to really mess that surface up. again about the pot - if i used a bigger pot from the get go, i could have probably just left it alone while it expanded/bubbled up during heating.

in fact im using it tomorrow on brewday, but only using 200grams. i’ll try to update on the taste later.

pic is the result.

Untitled222
Untitled2221200×1223 217 KB

6

I’m a big believer in using candi sugar in some styles, and I’ve had great success with this: How to make Belgian Candi Sugar | An Engineer and His Carboy

7

That’s your candi syrup???

It doesn’t look very syrupy.

And I was thinking that I would try doing this. I thank you for the forewarning… I’ll probably just buy the product.

8

im deferring to “the experts” but also experience -

the acid + sugar + time and temps method does not result in the profile one expects from what is put in belgian beers and is “candi syrup TM” and similar products. this has been proven by method and result.

fyi i do absolutely use sucrose or dextrose in beers like tripels or if i simply want to dry out any beer.

9

Sorry it hasn’t panned out for you. Sure has made some great Belgian beers at my house.

image
image3024×2946 1010 KB

10

nice sassy comment, so did the sugar that you made (if you had the intention to make an actual dark sugar/syrup) result in a beer that had dark and dried fruit and plum pudding flavours? because the consensus and my experience is that acid+sugar et al doesnt do that. that’s why people are continuing to develop these candi sugar efforts and there hasnt been a definitive “ahh problem solved” moment yet.

if you are referring to using some basic boiled sugar that is light amber to clear, then that would work fine in a tripel or beer without the intention of dark, concentrated fruity flavours. you might have misinterpreted the entire point of the thread

11

Not sassy, brother - just telling you it has worked for me. Cheers!