Belgian Candi Sugar - Make your own 

Thanks for that, I appreciate it. I've really tried to simplify the process so that it's not such a pain every time I need to make sugar

Thanks for that Joseph, it'll definitely go well in the 8. I hope it brews well after waiting so long.

Thanks for joining 🍺🍺

Thanks for the comment, I really appreciate it. I have made it into a syrup version by waiting for it to cool a little, and then adding boiling water very slowly. I don't do this now however, as I find it much easier to weigh and know exactly how much candi sugar I'm putting into the beer. I then just put the rocks into my hop basket and let them dissolve from there, so they don't stick to the kettle bottom. Obviously if you find syrup easier, then if you carefully measure out the water you add to the sugar, you can account for it in the weight .....🍺

That's a really good point. I didn't even consider the protein in the honey. I can't say I've noticed a difference in taste between my honey version and the way I used to do it with just DME, but there possibly is a slight difference. It may be more noticeable when the sugar is stopped at one of the lighter colour stages. I've always meant to try using something like BCAA powder for exactly that reason of seeing if there's a taste difference.

@@brewandbuild By the way, do you know the dimensions of your wok? I would like to make 1.5kg but it looks like yours is about to boil over.

@@oliverekeland7003 Yep, 29cm wide x 8.5cm high. Volume of 4 litres.

I haven't tried this version of sugar in the oven. I suppose the lower temperature/lighter colour sugar could be done that way, and that might be worth me trying. However, when you are taking it to the temperatures at the very edge of burning, it would be very difficult to get it to just the right point without getting the acrid bitterness of burnt sugar.

@@brewandbuild I will ask the brew master at the brewery where i help for the exact temp and time. But I know they are doing this caramel/candy sugar for their christmas ale in the oven on silicone mats and just add the ingredients dry. Then take it out to harden and it will set like a plate, which they break up and add.

I was never happy with the idea of adding water all the time either, which is why I ended up with this method. The turning back into granules... yeah, anyone making candi sugar has been there, or they just haven't made enough yet, and it's going to happen to them. When it happens, it goes a bit like sand. If you catch it early, like it sounds you did, you can rescue it. I've tried to keep heating to melt it, failed, then added water, and I could not get it to melt again. Had to bin the lot. It's generally crystallisation from: too much stirring : too many crystals left around the top edges : or trying to heat it too quickly through the inversion stage (between 125c -135c / 257f - 275f) Using the generally accepted method of making candi sugar (ie holding at temperature to invert) You are constantly at risk of going to crystals at this point. Once you get the temperature held for 30 minutes or so at the inversion stage, you'll have enough inverted sugar, ie glucose and fructose, that the mixture won't crystallise. With a sufficient percentage of inverted sugar in the mix, you're then safe. This is why I use honey in the mix. (I use honey as we keep bees, and it's free for me) You can also use golden syrup. These are both inverted sugars, so by mixing a decent percentage of them in from the start, you already have enough Glucose and Fructose present that it will not go to crystals. I also find the wok helps too, as even without inverted sugar, I have no need to stir or add water to cool, because the wok contains everything better than a pot. If you use a wok though, make sure it's really clean, as any foreign matter can cause crystallisation also. I hope some part of my ramblings here answered your question.... 🍺😁

@@brewandbuild You answered my questions completely, Thank you, I am using the Wok this morning and using my stove rather than my outside burner(that i typically use for brewing). First batch got a little too hot and i ended up with a nice caramel type sugar(not the goal, but still better than my previous two attempts). I am on the second batch now going low and slow on the temp rise, so far so good, and wayyy less risk of being burned o making a mistake. I got a pretty bad burn on my hand before I saw your video. Thank you for saving me from future burns.

@@theferalpaladin4350 Sounds like you have it under control. I hope that batch turned out the way you wanted.

The short answer is: maybe, but probably not. as the residual ph of baking soda is probably not strong enough to drive the maillard reactions in sugar. I haven't tried baking soda, however, I have seen many comments over the years of people suggesting it. The longer answer is a bit trickier. The alkaline needs to be as strong as possible, so that you are able to use as little as possible. To try to get a low enough ph required for this to work as it does in my video, you would have to use quite a large amount of baking soda. The amount of soda required would then have quite a residual bitter taste. Whether that would be strong enough to carry forward into the beer would depend on how much candi sugar was required for the beer style. I suggest it probably will carry over, even in small amounts So it's worth trying, new experiments always are, but be prepared for not succeeding. Food grade lye is quite cheap, and is easy to get hold of, as it's used so extensively by people making soap at home. I hope that helps....

The difference is the ph of the sugar for the reactions to take place. By using acid, you are inverting the sugar, and forming glucose and fructose. You are then heating that, and caramelising the sugar. You will certainly get raisin flavours and aromas, but it will be limited as to the range of flavours you can get. By not using acid, we can still invert the sugar, by holding the temperature at 125c - 135c for an extended period, or we can add something that is already inverted, such as honey. These invert sugars are then mixing with the amino acids from the DME. The problem is, that no significant further reactions will occur to form melanoidins, and certainly not with an acid added. This is where we need an alkaline, to raise the ph. The reactions to form melanoidins will only really happen in an alkaline state. When I added the lye water, and the colour changed, the flavours that were being produced will not be found in a purely caramelised sugar. Because I had all those melanoidins present, I was able to get the sugar extremely dark, and hence form a huge array more flavours than caramelising will alone. In fact, if you took just invert sugar/caramel to the colour that I have in the video, I'm not sure it would be edible. There would be so much burnt ash flavour, that I think it would be too bitter to use in beer. I'm not saying that your method does not produce a sugar that adds great flavours to beer, it does. However, this method increases the range of flavours produced.

This is always my worst nightmare about putting videos on RU-vid. I hate the thought that someone tries what I've done, and doesn't get as good a result. Yeah, volume definitely has an impact with this. I don't think I've tried making less than 500g, simply because my sugar thermometer won't stay covered sufficiently. 600g - 1kg is the sweet spot for my set up for sure. I think I make a comment about the fact that you can't see me adjusting the stove, but I've got it going on and off quite a bit in the early stages, so that the temp rises in a slow and controlled manner. The heat isn't really constant until the very end for me. Holding it for an extended run in that 150-160 mark should get loads of dark flavours, but it does need to sit for quite a while. Taking it to 165 - 175 is risky, but will get you roasted barley type flavours. Maybe not worth the risk getting that high for the first batch, it goes wrong real quick.

@@brewandbuild The information in this comment was because I thought it might be useful to someone. If I used a kilo, I wouldn't have these problems. When you only cook with 250g, the residual heat in the element becomes a problem and when you take it off the element, the temperature drops extremely quickly.

Tried to make 1 kilo in a wok. Tasted much smoother than the previous attempt. Used 90% sucrose and 5% each of dextrose and fructose. I don't remember exactly what D-180 tasted like, but I think this one has more of a caramel flavor and is still a bit sharper with less complexity. Maybe you want to combine it with muscovado, brown or coconut sugar in the quadrupel. Got some roasted flavor, and it tastes smoother than roasted barley. I think and hope the sharpness will disappear when I put it in a beer.

Sounds like it went better this time.🍺🍺 I feel this version is more caramel than the D-180 as well. Part of that I believe comes from cooking it so fast. I wonder if a VERY long cook out at lower heat would bring more complexity?.... After all, I believe their process for making D-180 is actually quite complex, so I would hope that they have a little more to offer at the end. I don't see them cooking it up in a wok 😁😁 Any sharpness should disappear once it's ferments out and ages a little. There is actually a large amount of fruit flavour in this sugar though. I made an ale with all pilsner and 16% of this dark candi sugar, just to narrow down exactly what it was bringing to the beer (ended up quite nice, but not a recipe I'd publish). After about 3 months, it lost most of it's caramel flavour, but kept the roasted barley flavour. There was no sharpness and it tasted mostly like red berries and lightly of plum. I hope the beer goes well with it now.

@@brewandbuild Dumped the batch and will try again.😆 I think my mistake was trying to get the same color as D-180. When it was a darker brown, it had a taste similar to st.Bernardus 12. But when I had it at a higher temperature, it tasted like burnt stick bread😂 I'll stop at a little darker than D-90 next time. I don't think I got any more flavor from holding 140 +-5 for more than 30min. I had a crystallization problem and had to add more water after 40 minutes. So the plan is 140+-5 for 30min, then 160+-5 until "dark brown"

That's good news. I suspect it's a case of getting used to the stove and the different heat retention of whatever wok/pot is being used at any one time. There's so many factors at play to hold a temperature. Sounds like you might be getting it nailed. "Are we sure they don't use unrefined sugar?" - No, that's the problem really isn't it? We can't be sure of anything. I have read comments from the owner of Candi Sugar Inc that it's supposedly at least a 3 day process to make their syrup. If that's actually true, then they're going to be getting all sorts of different end results. Received my date sugar, now just got to get a spare hour or two over the next couple of weeks to experiment. I'll let you know what happens when i do.

Ok, it's been a wet afternoon, so I decided to try the date sugar. Recipe: 500g White Sugar 250g Date Sugar 100g Honey 1 tsp DME This was really brown just on mixing it up. By the time I got to 110°c, the colour was about the same as when I usually add the Lye at 145°c. The colour was at my 165-175°c colour by the time I reached 145°c, and I hadn't put in the Lye. When I added Lye, the colour went VERY dark. I didn't go any higher than 145°c. The smoke coming off the mix was fairly disconcerting, although there is no burnt flavour. Which surprised me. (I mean the kitchen was hard to see through due to smoke) The flavour? Yes it's fruity, mostly date, and it is definitely a candi sugar, rather than just toffee, but it completely lacks the complexity and all the caramel, chocolate, coffee and roast barley that's in my usual. I think if I wanted that, then I might as well put the date sugar into the beer, along with some of my regular candi sugar. There is organic matter (fibre?) in the sugar, which I don't think is a problem in a beer, as it will just settle out during the boil and/or fermentation. It could be that I needed to push through and get into the higher temps, which maybe needs reducing the percentage of date sugar, to lessen the smoke. That might have resulted in more flavour. Or, maybe there is something in a double cook. Get the original flavour first, then re-heat with some date, and get the fruit. It most definitely will give a much darker colour very quickly.

@@brewandbuild Interesting! Definitely useful information. By the way, I think I'll try to increase the lye to 1.2 grams in the hope of getting more fruit flavor. Also try 50/50 sugar and golden syrup. Gets a lot of crystallization after 20 min at 140C with only 10%.

That's also interesting. I would have assumed the results were similar between Golden syrup and Honey, and I've never had crystallisation since using 10%+ Honey. However, just looking at one of our popular Golden syrup brands, their food product specification sheet states that the Glucose/Fructose is only between 45-50% of the product, the other 50% is sucrose. (Always thought it was all Gluc/Fruc). So yeah, maybe your 10% allocation is a little low then. Worth trying the extra Lye. Might depend on whether there's enough FAN to convert to more melonoidins.

@@brewandbuild 600 grams of sugar and 500 grams of golden syrup +1.2 grams of lye was much better, no crystallization and much finer boiling. 30 min at 140 and 30 min at 160. D90/180 has a sour taste, got something similar this time. More fruity than other attempts. Next time I will try 100% golden syrup. Fructose caramelizes at 110 degrees. So I think it can contribute more to color and maybe fruitiness?🤷🏻‍♂️

Mine says "pure" on the package, but I'm pretty sure it's just guaranteed as "at least 99% pure" The amount you actually use in a batch is very small, so unless it's been cut with something horrendous, the 1% will be negligible anyway.