Making Belgian Candi Sugar At Home 

Sounds like it went well. If it siezes up you can work more water into it and continue on. Adding 5-10% corn syrup can also help prevent siezing. For the one that worked, it tastes pretty good just as a treat.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Add more water and keep going is what I did but it took so much water it was like starting over. I assumed it hydrolyzed the flour and some of the sugar so it should be easier now. I still added some dextrose for insurance. Next time I will add the dextrose right from the start and will do a larger batch so it's easier to control the temperature.

I don't worry about crystallization anymore, as I covert everything to syrup after. Adding fructose (corn sugar) can help, as can minimizing the amount you stir and limiting over-heating. That said, I add half the weight in water of the starting sugar at the end to make a syrup, which dissolves anything crystallized. As for the CaOH2, it dissolves poorly in water, so thr solution will be cloudy when you add it to the sugar. Which is why I prefer sodium hydroxide, which is much more soluble.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Wonderful. I did it right intuitive: I added also water at the end. Also I stir the rest of crystallized sugar with some sugar. Maybe the Na(OH)2 is a good hint. We have fructose here, but it is not made from maize, but from wheat. I stick to dextrose and increase the addition. Thanks again for the quick reply. Happy brewing!

Follow the link to the blog post at the bottom of the video description. All volumes are in ml/L and g/kg. In this case, a tbsp is 15 ml.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I prefer to put everything in weights (metric) because it's unambigious. Imperial and US standard can sometimes clash aswell. But I guess you know about all that allready considering you scientific background.

Sodium bicarbonate is not strong enough of a base - you'd ruin the flavour of the candi long before you got to the right pH. As for the stove, practice, practice, and practice some more. As a general "rule ", heat on medium heat until you get to about 10C below toyr desired temperature, then turn the burner right down. It'll take a while to get to the right temp, but it will get there. The issues with these elements is they hold a lot of heat, so they'll continue to pass heat onto your pot long after you've turned the element down.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Thank you for these tips! I look forward to trying my hand at making this again. The previous recipe I had used had left with me with a decent product, but it definitely wasn't Belgian candi syrup-I ended up with a deep dark, rich, smokey syrup, so I am eager to start smelling some plums/chocolate in my kitchen!

I'm using ~1 teaspoon of dry lye (sodium hydroxide) per kilo (2.2lbs) of sugar, although since this video I've gone up as much as 2.5X that with good success. Just make sure you dissolve it in water before, as you'll not get good incorporation of the lye if you throw in powder. Pickling lime needs (in theory) about double the volume compared to lye. I've not tried this one much (pickling lime is hard to find in Canada), so I cannot comment on how well it compares to lye.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I just tired with calcium hydroxide, used about 3g in with 1.6kg sugar and around 400g water. Couldn't get it to the colour in your video. I felt i messed this up some how other than using calcium hydroxide, Maybe I used too much spraymalt(25g)? , it was super foamy like at least double of the foam in your video, then it got too thick also so i had to add more water.

@@stephens4490 If it is too foamy, that is a sign that you are heating it too intensely; it also sounds like you have too much spraymalt - I typically use 1-2% by weight.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing You're certainly right. I was planning to make a quadruple but this sugar doesn't have the roasted flavours. Should I try again or could i add like coffee or maybe cacao nibs to provide these flavours?

@@stephens4490 it took me 5 or 6 tries before I got my first good batch of candi sugar, and while I hope my video would accelerate your process, making candi isn't easy and you may need to try a few times more before it works. That said, quads usually aren't very roasty, with the candi sugar providing more of a raisin/dried fig and caramel notes. You can get a similar character using malts like special b and Abby malt.

Depends on what the 1% is. What was it sold for? If for soap making, food equipment cleaning, or baking, it should be fine. If it's toilet cleaner/etc, I'd be wary.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing It is sold for cleaning, but also this Norwegian "Lutefisk" (fish).

Chinmay Nayak in theory I don't see why it wouldn't work, but its unnecessary. You need ~1% inversion to drive the maliard reactions, the non-acid method in my video gives about 20% inversion. You can skip the inversion step all together if you add 5% fructose up-front. So while adding acid would give more inversion, flavour-wise you're not gaining anything. Obviously, if invert sugar is your goal than adding acid is key.

Sui Generis Brewing That makes total sense. Thanks for your reply!

I cover this is my associated blog posts. DAP alone will not give you maliard reactions, as the acid inhibits malliard reactions and instead biases them to caramelization reactions. Moreover, I've found DAP to give an unpleasant ammonia character in many cases. The 2-stage process I use ensures that you get formation of reactive sugars and an appropriate pH for the reactions.

Robert Locke Don’t tell us what aren’t without telling us what are, please.

@@joverstreet24 Not sure what that means, but this was a Star Wars joke.

Wort should be fine - all you are looking for is a protein source; in fact, DME has a tendency to clump, leading to crystalization, so a liquid like wort may be superior. Others have tried yeast nutrient and even yogourt, with success.

Sui Generis Brewing Thanks very much. Will let you know how my experiments work out. Cheers

Citric acid promotes caramelization, which had a very different flavour profile to malliard reactions. Baking soda is not basic enough, you really need lye or pickling lime to make it work well.

You could try more base and a longer cooking period. I go by colour, not time. D90 should be dark-brown bordering on black when spotted on a plate like I do in the video. D180 will be charcoal-black.

Also, the amount of time you used is on the shorter side. I don't think I've ever done less than 20 or 30 minutes at 160C. For darker Candis, 45 min to an hour would be typical with my stove and setup.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I will try to increase to 1.2 grams of lye. Even with 10% dextrose/fructose, there is a lot of crystallization after 20 minutes at 140C. So I thought I'd try with 50% golden syrup (which I think only consists of reducing sugar?). It contains 0.1 gram of salt. Hope it's not a problem.😆 The syrup was a little lighter than D-90. But more flavor🤷🏻‍♂️

Generally, you add as per a recipe. This style of sugar is used in a bunch of Belgian style beers, so I'd find one of those and prepare sugar to match. For use in beer, the easiest thing to do is turn it into a syrup at the end. Once the desired colour/flavour is reached, kill the heat and carefully stir in 3/4 of the sugars weight in cold water. This will create a syrup that can be easily added to a beer.

@@thanhtungvlogs88 dme = dried malt extract. Acid can be lactic acid or citric acid

I almost always make it into syrup now. Once the candi is done, stir in a half-weight of cold water, then pour into a container.

Some caramelization is normal - by the end of the inversion step your sugar will likely be a modest tan in colour. That is normal. If your sugar is going darker than that, then you likely have your heat on too high and are scorching the bottom of the pot. Slow and steady!

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Thank you so much for the quick reply. Will try turning the heat down. Another problem i figured is that i was using a shallow pan, causing the water to evaporate rapidly. Will try again now. Thanks again.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I figured out what was going wrong, i was making it with DAP and due to that the sugar was getting caramalized/burnt at 120C range. So i added the DAP later on after the inversion process, along with the alkali (pickling lime in my case) and it turned out perfect. Nutty, Roasty, a hint of chocolate, and lots of plum. The colour was a tad bit less dark than the one you got in this video.

Yep, everything scales linearily. Just make sure you use a pot 3 or more times bigger than your mixture so ot doesn't boil over

You cannot get wort to a high enough temperature to produce maillard products. Which is why we make the candi sugar first, then add it to a beer. You need to get to 125-145C to generate the flavours we want. Wort boils at 100C

@@SuiGenerisBrewing true. But my plan is to boil off most of the moisture to get to honey-like texture of the wort. Thus I'll be able to boil it somewhere above 100°. Will it work?

@@antonlovchikov630 perhaps, but thats a lot of boiling. It would probably be easier to use liquid malt extract!

@@SuiGenerisBrewing yeah, it'd be a logical shortcut :) Last question. If Maillard reaction's optimum temp is 125-145 °С, does it mean that decoction meshing doesn't contribute all that goodness as all brewing blogs claim? I've tried it many times and the thickest part of the mesh boils at the same 100°.

@@antonlovchikov630 I suspect that its mostly a myth, as unless you're scorching part of the mash, you're not going to have maillard products form. Not to mention, typical maillard reactions (nutty, stone fruit, caramel) aren't exactly the flavours of decoction

I don't think ammonium bicarb isn't basic enough, but it couldn't hurt to try

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Thanks for your answer. I think some kind of reaction happens because the smell and taste of caramel is incredible ..... if you have the chance I suggest you try .. Thanks again! P.S. I forgot, if you want in the form of a syrup, just add water at the end of cooking (out of the fire) and put it still hot in clean glass jars

Acids drive caramelization reactions and inhibit malliard reactions, so you will end up with a very different tasting product. Essentially, acidic mixtures will not develop the dried fruit and nutty notes.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I think it's the presence of malt and other ingredients that makes nutty flavours, not absence of acid. sugar itself won't ever maillard react as there are no molecules that can react in that matter

@@JanMachovec If you watch the video, you'll see that I add a small amount of DME which acts as a protein source, thereby driving malliard reactions. Without it, this would just be a very inefficient way of making caramel.

You need a protein source otherwise it will not work. You could use a small amount of yeast nutrient in place of the DME.

A 1 molar solution would be 77g/L at 95%, so for 300 ml you would want 24 g (22 g at 100%). That said, 300 ml is a lot of solution, and given how caustic it is I'd suggest making a much smaller amount. Keep in mind that you only need 15-30 ml per kilo of sugar. I'd also be concerned about the other 5% - is it a food grade product? If not, I'd be careful to ensure that the other 5% isn't something toxic.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing thank you for replying, yes it is food grade, I can store it safely no kids.

Alpha manta In the video description are links to two articles on my blog about making candi sugar, complete with links to the various sources I relied on while refining my own method. The coles notes version is that one needs know only a bit of chemistry to understand why using acids are incorrect. Acids as added by candy (as in the treat, not the Belgian sugar) makers to speed the inversion process. However, acids will also accelerate carmelization/burning reactions, and impair the Maillard reactions (reactions between inverted sugars and free amino groups) which form the stone-fruit flavours we are trying to develop.

Sui Generis Brewing You mention here above that ACIDS (lemon, tartar, citric ACCELERATE carmelization, but in the video, you attribute the LIGHT colored sample's lack of carmelization to use of acid. I'm confused ( at: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-25ohU8GfAJk.html)

***** I over-simplified - caramelization can be driven by both acidic and basic pH's, if you are acidic (below 3) or basic (above 9) enough. For that sugar I added the small amount of acid normally used for inverting sugar, which is not enough to drive caramelization, but is enough to inhibit Malliard reactions.

Clear would just be inverted, then heated to hardball stage (if solid) or diluted to syrup.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Great, thank you. I've just finished my first test batch - 127-135C for 20min then up to 150C, small amount of citric acid was added at the beginning. Final product is slightly amber in color, which I guess is fine, even though Leffe blonde clone recipe I'm planning to brew calls for a clear candy....don't know how will my candy affect the final EBC, but thats part of the game to experiment:) When I looked for other recipes for inverted sugar (syrup), in some temperature of just 115C is recommened - is that enough to get most of the sugar converted in the presence of an acid? And once again thanks, your channel is an amazing source of information.

@@rndm8056 when light candi is called for, you can just use table sugar. No meaningful difference. If you just want to invert it, simply do the inversion step but heat no further. That said, I doubt you'll see a difference in colour or flavour.

Crystalization during heating can be due to over-mixing or other issues; you shouldn't need to add much water outside of cooling the sugar. As for the beersmith instructions, I do not know. By weight I would use the same, but by volume it may be less dense. I would be surprised if ~25% of the homemade sugar was non-fermentable, which is what the beersmith instructions assumes.

Thanks for your reply Sui. Yes, I was mixing it a lot as I thought this would help break it up and stop crystallisation! What other issues can cause it? In beer smith it states that 100g normal sugar is equal to 125g candi sugar, although maybe this is due to as you say, it assuming that 25% of the candi sugar is non fermentable. I dont think it will be that high either. In my last Belgian beer I used golden syrup (which is also inverted sugar) and 100% of it fermented. Beer smith also states that 125g golden syrup equals 100g normal sugar, I guess again as they assume it is not totally fermentable. When I was making my candi sugar it did smoke a little bit as well as go a bit crystalised before I added the water. DO you think I may have wrecked the batch? It doesnt look black as it stands, its just dark brown.

Taste it - if it tastes really burned I wouldn't use it. I posted an update to the method in the video on my blog which outlines a few things you can do to reduce crystalization and get a more consistent product: suigenerisbrewing.blogspot.ca/2016/03/belgian-candi-sugar-part-iii.html In terms of beersmith, I wonder if those numbers are for candi syrup, not rocks. Syrup would be 20-25% water by weight, which would account for the difference.

Unfortunately, no. Basking soda is not alkaline enough to drive the reaction without adding an amount that would give the candi an unpleasant flavour.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Alright, thank you for the quick response!

I had the same problem but found pickling lime at the local Latin grocery. Ask for Cal Mexicana. They use it for corn tortilla making.

No, it is not strong enough of a base. It has a pKb of ~3.5; you need something with a pKb of

I make a 1 molar solution, which is much less concentrated than what you use for soap. 1 molar lye (sodium hydroxide) is 40 g of lye per liter of water. That's a 25:1 ratio of water:lye by weight. You don't need much; I generally make 1/8th of a cup - 1/8 cup water (30 mL water) and 1.2 g of lye. That's enough for a few kilos of candi sugar.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I haven´t heard about molar solution since high school. : ) thanks for the conversion.

You are incorrect. To make candi sugar (e.g. sugar with mallard products) you need a reducing sugar and an amine source. The amines react with the reducing sugars, producing the malliard products which provide the candi with its flavours. The initial 30 minute heating phase outlined in my video is where sugar inversion occurs, providing reducing sugars. The DME which is added to the mix provide proteins, which contain amides, which then react with the reducing sugars is the later/hotter stage of the process. My method fairly closely mimics what happens in commercial candi sugar production facilities, which rely on the trace proteins left in beet sugar after processing for an amine source. I and others have tried ammonium chloride and other amminoium-based salts, and they produce a less flavourful and sometimes unpleasant (e.g. ammonia-scented) candi. They do work, but not as well as when you use a protein source for your amides. The chemistry and links to many other experimental sites can be found in the blog articles associated with this video.

As ok, thanks, Paolo

Malliard is what I meant. The reason we invert is that sucrose is not reactive with amines, and you need to break it into its component saccharides to release the "reducing sugar" minosaccharides to enable the reactions

@@SuiGenerisBrewing true i totally forgot that sucrose is non reducing :S, while its two monosaccharides are reducing especially fructose which promotes maillard extremely fast. Thank so much for the quick reply as well. have an awesome day

Борис Борисов I don't add citric acid as that would prevent the formation of the flavours I am looking for. The sugar will spontaniously invert when ou heat it wihout citric acid - but it takes longer. The calcium hydroxide (you can also use food-grade sodium hydroxide) is added after the inversion of the sugar to accelerate the flavour-creating Malliard reactions.

Thanks you so much !!!

+Öjvind Davidsson A very small amount - roughly 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of a 1M NaOH solution. 1M NaOH = 40g of NaOH dissolved into 1L of water.

Thanks. Tried this once unfortunately everything crystalllized had to redo any comment how to aviod.

Adding a small amount of corn sugar or corn syrup (fructose) helps - 1-2% by weight is enough. You can also try to minimize the amount of stirring. Crystallization isn't too big an issue though; it'll still go through malliard reactions.

I'm glad you enjoyed the video!

hey Sui Generis Brewing, I have a few questions. how strong should the acid be? I have found calcium hydroxide but how strong solution is the product you use? and how will the alkaline candi sugar effect the beer PH? and last, please don't take this the wrong way, but do you have a chemistry background? I am only asking because I want to be absolutely sure what I am making is completely safe.

+owenrobins65 Calcium hydroxide works as well. The amounts required are quite small, so it may be possible to use non-food grade sources. I.E. reasonably pure calcium hydroxide is sold at many aquarium stores for adjust water balance. Do not use acids of any sort - that will prevent the formation of the malliard products that provide all of the flavours you are looking for.

thanks for the comment. do you know ruffly what the ph should be/swing to, inn order to create the reaction? also is calcium carbonate a sutible alternative? I know that they do you this in wine making as a ph adjuster. thankyou again

I think you're shooting for a pH between 8 and 9, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how you would ever measure that in a molten vat of sugar. As for calcium carbonate, I don't think it would work - it has a pKa of 9, meaning you'd need to add a lot to get to the desired pH. The bases normally used - sodium & calcium hydroxide - both have pKa's between 12 and 13. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) may work (pKa of 10), but the amount required may lead to a minerally/salty flavour.

I imagine that would work fine - after all, yeast nutrient is simply destroyed yeast.

Sui Generis Brewing I thought yeast nutrient is largely urea?

***** Not usually. Diammonium phosphate (DAP)-style yeast nutrients is a pure chemical that is sometimes mixed with urea - personally, I don't like the candi sugar that comes from that (mine is pure DAP though, no urea). The other 'kind' of yeast nutrient is typically hydrolysed yeast (yeast heated under acid conditions to break them down). This will be a complex mix of amino acids, nucleotides, lipids, minerals and other yeast substances. You can tell them apart rather easily; the DAP is white, the other stuff is tan-to-brown.

Lye is sodium hydroxide, AKA caustic soda, and yes, it is a highly caustic chemical used as an industrial cleaner (including in most commercial breweries) and can cause serious chemical burns if spilled on your skin/eyes/etc. Food-grade lye is the same chemical, and is used to drive browning reactions - for example, traditional German pretzels are dipped in lye to help develop the dark-brown colouration as they bake. The lye is consumed during the baking process, so none makes it through to the final food product. Unfortunately, for candi sugar preparation you do need a strong base such as lye. There are alternatives (pickling lime, potassium hydroxide, wood ash lye), but all of those are near-equal in their corrosives. So if using any of them be very careful to not spill any on yourself, and prepare only the minimal volume you need. You need very, very little (you will need about 1 tablespoon of a 30g/L solution), and the lye will be consumed as you cook the sugar. Be careful not to add too much lye, as any excess can carry through to the final sugar.

Thanks Sui Generis for your answer. I've reading your blog and you did a really great job! I wonder if using Baking Soda instead of Lye might work ... What do you think about it?

esteban uri baking soda wont work as it is not alkaline enough to drive the melanoidin reactions

Yep, no acid = higher inversion temp required if you want it done in a resonable amount of time. I've not tried the canning method for invert, but I've heard it works but produces some carmelization

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I want some caramelization, and maybe some browning (might not get browning because it will be inhibited by the acid) I am making British style, hopefully somewhere in the range of #2 or #3. I haven't figured out how much water to add to each jar (with a pound of minimally-processed white sugar) because I know some water is consumed by the reaction. Probably will just use a cup of water, which is too much, because the jars will be sterile; not like honey that needs to be below 20% moisture to keep from spoiling. I can store open jars in the fridge.

@@zxcvbob I'd suggest 2:1 sugar:water; this makes a thick syrup that won't spoil, but which also wont crystalize immediately after cooling. Thats 2:1 by weight, not volume. If you try, let me know how it goes!

@@SuiGenerisBrewing I did try it. I divided a 4 pound bag of cane sugar (very light tan color) into four 1.5 pint canning jars and added 8 ounces of hot distilled water to the first two; that looked like too much water so I added 6 ounces to the others. Added 1/8 tsp of citric acid to each jar. Stirred them up until the sugar was suspended then put them in a big canner (without lids) and processed at 15 lbs for about an hour. When I took them out, they were dark brown; the two jars with more water were slightly darker and the other two had a little bit of undissolved sugar at the bottom where had it settled out. I stirred those 2 up while still hot and assumed it would all seize up when it cooled. Instead the sugar dissolved and all 4 jars got a little darker and almost matched in color... My plan was to end up with 4 pint jars, each with one pound of sugar (closer to 1.5 pounds of syrup) but my syrup was too thin. So I dumped it all into a stainless steel stockpot and simmered it for a half hour to reduce it. And it got darker still. I reduced it a little too far; had 3 full jars and one jar about 1/3 full. The stuff was very thick and tar-like, but it tastes good. Slightly bitter, but not burned at all. This was about 2 weeks ago. I just realized last night that I could transfer enough from the full jars into the partial jar to make them all have about the same amount, then top up with boiling water. So that's what I did last night. Then I put canning lids on them and processed them at 10 lbs for about 20 minutes. Now I have four sealed pint jars of dark invert syrup. I don't know if it's Invert #3, but it's reddish-black... I will take what I've learned here and try to simplify it next time. Use much less water, and cook the syrup on the stove just to dissolve all the sugar. Pour into jars, add hot water to top them up, then process for an hour or so. And will probably use plain white sugar. But that will be a while because I need to use this first.

@@zxcvbob Very cool, and thanks for sharing. I'm going to have to give it a go myself!

Pickling lime is food-grade calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) It is not lime the mineral, nor lime the fruit.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Wow - very fast answer. Thank you. I own CaOH2, but I'm not sure that it is working well. Do you have a recommendation how I can test it? What do you understand by chalk - is this CaO, CaOH2 or is is CaCO3? Pickling lime: all the translations in Germany are wrong. It is always translated as CaO!

@@stubbyhobbs CaCO3 is not what you want to use - that is limestone, not pickling lime. Being in Germany you should be able to get food-grade lye (sodium hydroxide), which is what is used to brown bretzels. Lye is superior to lime for making candi sugar.

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Thank you again. I own both lyes - CaOH2 and NaOH2. I prefer pickling lime. Sodium hydroxide is strongly corrosive, especially on wood and on the hands if you make original pretzels.

@@stubbyhobbs Ca(OH)2 is just as caustic. Sadly, you need a strong base to get the malliard reactions to work.

Possibly, but I don't think you would get as consistent results as with a thermometer. The biggest thing to avoid is temps that are too hot - at too high a temperature the sugar will quickly burn, becoming acrid & unpalatable. If you can avoid that, it should be OK.

Sui Generis Brewing I bought a candy thermometer and tried this, but my sugar got burned and resulted a black, a little bitter, sugar. I respected the temperatures, and i tested the thermometer with boiling water and it isn't decalibrated. What am i missing?

1) Flavour can be very similar to D180 - stone-fruit/dried fruit notes alongside some caramel character. The "trick" is to taste the candi as it cooks, and to stop the cooking process once you've reached the desired character. To sample, drop a small amount of the sugar (a few drops off of a spoon) into a cold cup of water; let harden than taste. Never sample the hot sugar directly. 2) Fermentability is high - 95-98%, I usually get 1.045-1.048 PPG. 3) Liquid sugar is super-easy to make (even easier than what I do in this video). Once you get to the desired colour/flavour, turn off the heat and carefully and slowly stir-in boiling water (e.g. avoid the hard-crack step). Continue adding water until the desired thickness of syrup is prepared; usually you need roughly the same amount as the volume of water you used for the initial dissolving of the sugar. Since posting this video I've made some improvements to the method. They can be found in the blog post at the following link: suigenerisbrewing.blogspot.ca/2016/03/belgian-candi-sugar-part-iii.html The method for making a syrup is detailed in this blog post - the method is the same for candi sugar as it is for invert: suigenerisbrewing.blogspot.ca/2015/01/quick-simple-invert-sugar.html

Thanks! Just a few more questions. Is it possible to omit the lye/lime and increase the cooking time? From my reading, increasing the pH seems to speed the maillard reaction up and Candi Syrup, Inc. claims to only use "natural" ingredients and no preservatives. If not, would baking soda work? Also, what amount of candi sugar will I get for a given amount of sugar used? Thanks for the answers!

In theory you can eliminate the base (lye or lime); in practicality you cannot. The issue is simply one of time - without the base you will need to maintain heat for 12 or so hours, which isn't practical at this scale. Baking soda will not work as it is not alkaline enough and has poor solubility in sugar. That said, food-grade lye (sodium hydroxide) is often considered "natural", and is used extensively in making "natural" soaps and for browning "natural" breads. If you really want to go all-"natural" you can make your own potassium-lye (potassium hydroxide) by boiling ash from a hard-wood fire in soft or distilled water for 30 min; let the ashes settle out and skim off the liquid - the liquid is lye. This is how lye was made historically. Potassium-lye is not quite as basic as sodium-lye, but the difference is so negligible as to be meaningless. I do not know if this form of lye will affect the taste, but given the minute amounts you need (about 1ml per 0.5kg of sugar), I doubt there would be a flavour effect. Its hard to answer the "amount" question - in theory, you should loose less than 1% of the initial mass of sugar - that lost

Sui Generis Brewing Thanks again!

+MSK Chess Pickling lime.

Hmmm i think these are kinda American things, i dunno if we get them here in the UK. They are both alkali right? Also why don't you advocate the use of acid? would something like lactic acid not be ok?

Acid prevents maliard reactions, so you'll get fairly plain-tasting invert sugar instead of flavourful; candi sugar. Pickling lime is available in the UK: www.amazon.co.uk/Mrs-Wages-Pickling-1-Pound-Resealable/dp/B0084LZU1Q

Ok thanks so much, the link costs £6.83 + £12.85 UK delivery which is about $30 for 450g. It seems to me and please correct me if I am wrong that pickling lime is Calcium hydroxide which i can get fairly easily at a more cost effective rate. I have plenty of DME which I use for yeast starters. I really fancy having a go at this because i had planned on attempting to caramelise some wort and add it back but its quite a tricky process and I think that making dark candi sugar as you have admirably demonstrated in the video could impart some caramel flavours that I am looking for more easily. What do you think? I really appreciate you taking the time - regards Robert.

You don't get too much caramel flavour from candi sugar; in fact, the conditions which make candi tend to impair caramelization. Candi gives more of a stone fruit (plum, raisin) character. Caramel is much easier to make: whatscookingamerica.net/Sauces_Condiments/CarmelizingSugar.htm

ah...since pickling lime does not disolve i added mixed in water but i haven't waited for it to sit at the bottom of the glass. with this method i can hit the maillard reaction with much less water and then start to raise temp for browning it.

+Gasman super For a 1kg batch you should need less than 1g of lime; indeed, you probably need closer to 0.1g. Lime is poorly soluble in water - a saturated solution is 1.5g/L. I'd suggest making such a saturated solution and adding it drop-wise to the sugar until the colour change begins. That should be sufficient. For comparison, lye (sodium hydroxide) is much more soluble; I still make a weak solution (0.1M, ~4g/L), and only use a a tablespoon or two of that. For lime, your solution is about 1/4th as concentrated, but is almost as alkaline, so you should only need ~4X the volume (a few tablespoons) to achieve the same end.

+Sui Generis Brewing oh, thanks a lot. so u suggest me to use, let's say 1 gram per liter, mix thoroughly and let it drop. then use that saturated solution untill the maillard happens?

+Sui Generis Brewing i mean maybe i add 2 grams per liter and mix till i get it well saturated. then i start using that liquid. why you think is not very wise to add the powder inside the pen? is there any problem about adding that powder? btw, i tried both ways, alkaline candi sugar and citric acid and i have to say that this method is just out of this world. the flavours, tastes and scents are 100 times better in alkaline solution.

+Gasman super Exactly; make a saturated solution (2g/L will do it) and add that to the heated sugar. I don't know what you mean about adding the "powder inside the pen". If you mean adding the powder directly to the sugar, do not do that - the powder will not dissolve and you'll end up with little chunks of pickling lime in your sugar.

+Sui Generis Brewing Hi there, had some crystalization issues aswell, but tried to fix it by adding not cold water, but nearly boiling water/already boiling. Crystalization happens when talking about Sugar + Water in many ways, but the most expressive ones are when you stir up the misture all the time (by bringing the foaming on top to the bottom of the pan) and when you drop the temperature of the misture WAY TOO QUICKLY (which happens when you add cold-water to it). When I used those two "solutions" together, the early crystalization problem got solved. By the way, when I added the Lime, the misture didn't end to get color as fast as your did. Maybe something related to purity of it? Oh, and about the time "used" for invertion, I personally think that it can be cut in half without any problems, that also helps out to prevent the crystalization. There's a specific word in Portuguese for the aspect of the sugar after the Crystalization, it's "Farofa". Search for it, you'll see that it resembles. Well, that's it for today, hope it helps! Cya!

Crystallization can be an issue, although its not something I personally worry about much - crystallized sugar dissolves just as well into boiling wort as does syrup. Adding a small portion of fructose (corn syrup), 1-2% by weight, really helps to limit crystallization, even if you do everything else "wrong" (stirring too much, adding cold water, etc). Inversion times are based on candy making standards for non-acidified sugars. I have no idea where they got their numbers from, but they work. Inversion will stop the second you add lime/lye, so you want to make sure it is complete before continuing onto the next step. As for the rate of colour change, that is dependent on many factors - temperature of the sugar (hotter = faster colour change), amount of protein (more = faster), concentration & amount added of the lye/lime solution (higher = faster), whether you use lye or lime (lye = faster)

+gmhulk3 I had the same problem with "Farofa" kkkk. I solved only adding more water.

May I use chalk instead of lime? If yes, how much dissolved in water? tks

Overture Cervejaria Chalk will not work - its not basic enough, nor is it soluble enough.

It crystalized. You may need to add more water while you heat

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Does it change the final result?

@@leandrocosta5072 adding water won't (just stir in a tablespoon into the hot sugar every few minutes). A lack of water is worse, and you can end up with burnt sugar instead of candi

@@SuiGenerisBrewing Thanks a lot!!! Of course I'll try again soon. Great video, valuable knowledge.