9 replies to this topic

[ANUSTART]

Has anyone done any controlled experiments comparing the differences between sugars in Belgian ales? There was some yahoo claiming that by cooking sugar to hard crack you turn it into invert sugar and it becomes exactly what the trappist breweries use, I've tried that and all you end up with is caramelized cane sugar. Lately I've been making my Belgian ales with grocery store cane sugar. I'm not sure that I can tell a difference at all, but I'm not doing any controlled experiments. What say the blue board?

[EWW]

no controlled experiments, but based on my casual findings:Clear candi = save your money and use cane or beet sugar since it's a lot cheaper and I personally don't taste the differenceI use a lot of unrefined sugars like Jaggery, pilloncillo, etc because I light the subtle character it contributes.As far as the liquid dark candi is concerned there really is no substitute IMO ... complex grain bills can come close, but there is no real comparison to the real deal.I haven't played with the soft candi so I can not really comment on it.

[BrewerGeorge]

There was an article in Zymurgy a while ago. It said there were differences, but I've never noticed any.

[ANUSTART]

As far as the liquid dark candi is concerned there really is no substitute IMO ... complex grain bills can come close, but there is no real comparison to the real deal.

Are you talking about this stuff? $10 for 1.5 lbs and some recipes call for 3 lbs or more... $$$

[EWW]

Are you talking about this stuff? $10 for 1.5 lbs and some recipes call for 3 lbs or more... $$$

Yep that the stuff. It is good but $$$ as hell. I have a good Belgian dark strong ale recipe that does a real good job of working around not being able to get the stuff local anymore by using a complex grain bill if you want it.

[MtnBrewer]

From what I understand, invert sugar must be in liquid form (syrup). When you cook the water out of it and make hard candi, it un-inverts.For pale Belgian ales, I use palm sugar (jaggery) and for dark ones I use the candi syrup.

[Stout_fan]

+1 on using the syrup.My Samiclaus clone appears to be spot on.

[Buscotucky]

I didn't notice a difference between plain cane sugar & inverted. The dark candi syrup is awsome. I've played with a lot of the unrefined sugars (jaggery/gur/piloncillo, etc.) but don't have my notes on them handy. If the other place comes back up, there's a post I'll copy over that has a breakdown of the ones I've tried.

[rockon]

I've never tried the dark candy syrup. WHen I've made Dubbels, I've used regular cane sugar. They sometimes taste a bit off, maybe a slight bubble gum flavor. Do you guys think this could be from the cane sugar? I might have to pony up for the syrup next time.

[drewseslu]

I've had good success with just Cane Sugar from the grocery store. However, these days I keep Turbinado and Belgian Dark Candi Syrup on hand at the brewery at all times, mostly for my Dubbel.Palm Sugar in a Tripel yields really nice results and I've got some Jaggery in the Biere de Mars I have in tank.On a related note, I use some Molasses in my Stout Porter.