Homemade Invert Sugar
This is my blog post about making invert sugar, there are many like it but this one is mine. I think by law if you have a homebrewing blog you need to do a post about making invert sugar. With invert sugar being such an integral part of english beer, I wanted to see what it contributes, especially in a mild. This blog post is what a lot of other blogs reference and has seemed to work well for others so that's what I used as a starting point. I also referenced this article from the good ol' AHA which I thought had some good info.
You need to start with unrefined cane sugar and I decided to go with jaggery. You can also use demerara, piloncilo, etc. I had never used or even tasted jaggery before so I selected it out of curiosity more than anything. It tastes... unusual lol and not really what I was expecting. It had a deep earthy almost tomato flavor but not in a bad way, I just don't know how else to really explain it. It was softer than I thought it would be and easy to work with which was a nice surprise.
I used 3 cups of water for 2.2 lbs of jaggery. The AHA recipe called for 2 cups for every 2.2 lb (1 kilo) and the unholly mess recipe called for 1 pint per 2.3 lbs. The 2 cups just didn't seem like enough so I added 3 and split the difference. It turns out 2 cups is definitely enough and by adding 3 all it did was take longer to reach the temp I was looking for.
For how long and at what temp to heat the invert sugar for I followed the unholymess recipe. For invert #1 20m at 240f. For invert #3 2.5 hrs at 240f. For the acid, I only had 10% phosphoric on hand and could only find recipes with 88% lactic acid so I just used the equivalent phosphoric that would drop the ph the same as the 88% lactic. Not sure if that's a good way to go about it but the invert sugar didn't crystallize and didn't have a sour acidic taste or anything so it worked fine. I used 25ml of 10% phoshoric acid for 2.2lbs of sugar.
As suggested by the AHA article, I added 4 tablespoon lyle's golden syrup to protect against crystallization. From what I've read the finished product should keep several months refrigerated. Also make sure you have plenty of room in your saucepan since the sugar does expand when it's heated. I did half of the sugar as #1 and the other half as #3 and used the #3 in a recent mild I brewed.
Recipe:
3 cups of carbon filtered water (I would recommend using 2)
2.2 lbs (1 kilo) of Jaggery
25 ml 10% phoshoric acid
4 tablespoons lyle's golden syrup
You need to start with unrefined cane sugar and I decided to go with jaggery. You can also use demerara, piloncilo, etc. I had never used or even tasted jaggery before so I selected it out of curiosity more than anything. It tastes... unusual lol and not really what I was expecting. It had a deep earthy almost tomato flavor but not in a bad way, I just don't know how else to really explain it. It was softer than I thought it would be and easy to work with which was a nice surprise.
I used 3 cups of water for 2.2 lbs of jaggery. The AHA recipe called for 2 cups for every 2.2 lb (1 kilo) and the unholly mess recipe called for 1 pint per 2.3 lbs. The 2 cups just didn't seem like enough so I added 3 and split the difference. It turns out 2 cups is definitely enough and by adding 3 all it did was take longer to reach the temp I was looking for.
For how long and at what temp to heat the invert sugar for I followed the unholymess recipe. For invert #1 20m at 240f. For invert #3 2.5 hrs at 240f. For the acid, I only had 10% phosphoric on hand and could only find recipes with 88% lactic acid so I just used the equivalent phosphoric that would drop the ph the same as the 88% lactic. Not sure if that's a good way to go about it but the invert sugar didn't crystallize and didn't have a sour acidic taste or anything so it worked fine. I used 25ml of 10% phoshoric acid for 2.2lbs of sugar.
As suggested by the AHA article, I added 4 tablespoon lyle's golden syrup to protect against crystallization. From what I've read the finished product should keep several months refrigerated. Also make sure you have plenty of room in your saucepan since the sugar does expand when it's heated. I did half of the sugar as #1 and the other half as #3 and used the #3 in a recent mild I brewed.
Recipe:
3 cups of carbon filtered water (I would recommend using 2)
2.2 lbs (1 kilo) of Jaggery
25 ml 10% phoshoric acid
4 tablespoons lyle's golden syrup
#1 Invert ^
#1 & #2 Invert ^
#3 Invert ^
#1 Invert ^
#3 Invert ^
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