Dry Candi Sugar Substitute

[monty50262]

I'm looking to make a Saison using Steve Kranz's recipe in Brewsmith which is ideal since I have Blichmanns Breweasy 15/20 system. It calls for dry Candi Clear 463g and dry Candi Amber 463g. Now I can get them both as syrups but the dry Amber is listed at 6 SEM and the clear at 0 SRM. The problem is the Amber Candi syrup is listed at 78 SRM. My understanding is that I can use use 1/12th the Amber syrup to get the desired SRM (A shame since I have to buy 1kg to use about 46g).
If so, do I use the remaining clear syrup to make up the Candi required? I was thinking of using those Barley sugar sweets that every one has grown to love or maybe some Butter Menthol sweets - but 463g of butter menthols seem ludicrous.
What are your thoughts?

 

[MHB]

Buy the real stuff, I was eating some of the Belgian Amber Rock on Friday at Brewman so I know at least one retailer with them both in stock.
And yes I would agree that 463g of butter menthols would be ludicrous, try dissolving one in a glass of beer.
You could probably get away with using household white instead of the clear but I would at least get the Amber, get some extra its too temptingly tasty!
Mark

 

[Markbeer]

Clear candi is just sugar. Save your money and use dextrose.

Leave out butter menthol or barley sugar. Will prob taste like diacetyl if you use them.

 

[jphowman]

Menthol flavour in a beer sounds horrible.
I would substitute raw sugar. It would be about the right colour, and the flavour is probably pretty close too.

 

[Brewman_]

and the flavour is probably pretty close too.

franks,

the flavour is not close at all. I can't really put it into words. It's the sort of thing if you drizzled it over a dessert or sprinkled crushed dry rock, and served it, people would go wow! They would not say, never had sugar on that before.. They'd say, what's that?

A customer dropped in and saw the empty container it is supplied in and launched at it and hoped there was a little in the bottom for his ice cream. He had used it before as a professional brewer in QLD.

I was saving the container to store some Mead making honey in.

It's worth a try if you want to make some Belgian beers.

The rock is very accessible as it is by the gram.

I absolutely agree on the Menthols though.

Cheers Steve

 

[Blind Dog]

There's a number of threads on here about making your own candi sugar if you're interested.

Personally, I don't bother with clear candi sugar and just use table sugar, but for Amber or dark I think it's worth getting the proper stuff if you don't want to invest in learning how to make your own. The darker hues add their own notes and layers of complexity to the beer's flavour that I've never been able to replicate without it.

 

[MHB]

I would say the same about the Clear, its not the same as white sugar and a lot different to dextrose, well the way yeast responds to sucrose is a lot different to how it reacts to dextrose and that affects the way the beer tastes.
Its a subtle difference but if I were making a really high end triple and was going to the expense of using Belgian malt and yeast I would use the Belgian Clear Candy to, for a quaffer, go house hold white. But it isn't the same.
Its a subtle, borderline intangible difference, but one or two points in a comp beer can be all it takes.
Mark

 

[TheWiggman]

Regarding sucrose and dextrose difference, I typically use raw sugar in my Aussie lagers with 2042. I've never been completely satisfied with them (though have received good feedback from pub-goers). What would the difference be?

 

[manticle]

I avoid raw sugar in large amounts in any beer after making a couple of known big belgian recipes using it. Unpleasant flavour that was just wrong.
I guess it's various byproducts that are removed when further refined to make table/white (maybe molasses? - I'm not a sugar expert).
In regards to sucrose versus dex - the main difference is yeast splits the sucrose into dex and fructose first using an enzyme called invertase.
That enzyme can have a flavour impact. Dex is a monosaccharide (isomerised glucose), sucrose is disaccharide.

 

[MHB]

Yeast cant eat (metabolise) sucrose, it cant transport it across the cell membrane like it can Maltose. So it excretes invertase into the wort, the amount is in direct proportion to the amount of sucrose (the more sucrose the more invertase). The invertase splits the Sucrose into Fructose and Glucose.
Yeast also metabolises sugars in a specific order Glucose and Fructose first, Maltose and higher saccharides pretty much in order of ascending molecular weight.

A couple of things happen in the process in response to the wort composition, there is always some simple sugars in a well made all grain wort; Hexoses (mostly Glucose and Fructose totaling about 7-9%), quite a lot of disaccharides Maltose 43-45%, Sucrose 3-4% Maltotriose 11-13%
Yeast needs energy up front to start doing its job, so the readily available sugars are used first. strangely yeast will give more metabolic energy to excreting Invertase than to importing Maltose, so a relatively small addition of Sucrose can cause a surprisingly large change in the yeasts behaviour, and as Manticle said it is thought higher Invertase levels that stay in the beer until we drink it is believed will affect the flavour.

Too much Sucrose can actually inhibit the yeasts ability to import and metabolise Maltose, propagate yeast on a high sucrose diet for a couple of generations and yeast can forget what to do with maltose, which will really bugger up your beer.

There are also a number of other effects, not all just related to the Sucrose : Maltose ratio, when sugar makes up a significant fraction of your extract, it also affects the amount of protein, FAN, higher saccharides, vitamins and minerals... in the wort, all of which change what the yeast makes from the wort.

I suspect the amount of things in raw sugar that aren't Sucrose would be having little effect on the flavour (there isn't much). If I wanted to make a "commercial" lager I think I would keep any sucrose under 10% not add it until part way through the ferment, have a look at your mash regime design, aiming toward a higher attenuating clean finishing beer.
Personally I think you can make a really good summer quaffer without adjunct and that its a beer I would rather drink.
Mark

 

[Blind Dog]

I would say the same about the Clear, its not the same as white sugar and a lot different to dextrose, well the way yeast responds to sucrose is a lot different to how it reacts to dextrose and that affects the way the beer tastes.
Its a subtle difference but if I were making a really high end triple and was going to the expense of using Belgian malt and yeast I would use the Belgian Clear Candy to, for a quaffer, go house hold white. But it isn't the same.
Its a subtle, borderline intangible difference, but one or two points in a comp beer can be all it takes.
Mark

Fair enough. Never personally noticed the difference, but I rarely brew really big beers so maybe the fairly small amounts I've used meant the differences were too small for me to pick up on. Definitely noticed the difference using dark candi sugar in a dubbel over caramelised table sugar in the same recipe and, based on your comments, will be using clear candi sugar when I finally get that triple brewed.