Home made Candi Sugar

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I'm into my Belgian beers which usually ask for candi sugar, and I've tried replacing with normal sugar but the texture is different. Is there something unfermentable in candi sugar/normal white sugar?

My very deep suspicion is that you can replace Belgian Candi sugar with supermarket sugar, derived from cane, beet, corn or whatever. If you want to caramelise it, you could add dark or light brown sugar. Much easier than faffing with it, for sure.
 
My very deep suspicion is that you can replace Belgian Candi sugar with supermarket sugar, derived from cane, beet, corn or whatever. If you want to caramelise it, you could add dark or light brown sugar. Much easier than faffing with it, for sure.

inverting it is the trick, and no need to add darker sugar, keep it on the boil for longer.

it is a faff IMO making your own so I buy mine in.
 
10% seems about right then. Seemed to be out of stock when i looked so will try again this weekend as soon as i get some peace. Wondering if you could make this with honey? Thinking of trying it in a porter.

If you cant get hold of candi sugar just use golden syrup. It's paritially inverted.
 
I made some dark candi sugar today as it's required for a Mikkeller clone I'm gonna brew soon. It's currently just drying out on the side, but when it's ready I'm gonna put a post on my blog, will link to it.

Honey is about 80% sugar and gives the beer a really nice texture as it imparts many unfermentables. I used it in the last 15 min of the boil with a pale ale I made. Our of the fermenter the honey flavour was quite prominent, but once bottled the honey was much more subtle and completely disappeared over time, but the beer got nicer on the whole as well over time.

I find candi sugar expensive in most homebrew shops, and a 1kg bag of caster sugar is a lot cheaper than a kg of candi sugar, the obvious trade off though being time. Luckily I'm in a position at the moment where I have the time so would rather make it than spend a lot of money on it. Especially as Belgian style beers are common in my brewery, and here in Ireland the HBSs just aren't as well stocked as they are in the UK.
 
10% seems about right then. Seemed to be out of stock when i looked so will try again this weekend as soon as i get some peace. Wondering if you could make this with honey? Thinking of trying it in a porter.

I've used 16.6% clear candi sugar & 16.6% golden syrup in my galaxy hop 3.

= 1/3 sugars but easily fermentable.

the rest was dme/dwe


hits the spot!
 
Made this earlier, pretty pleased took about 2 hours. However the thermometer i bought is ****. The fluid inside has a bubble so no idea if its accurate. I would of thought this should be darker?

IMG_0518.jpg
 
Made this earlier, pretty pleased took about 2 hours. However the thermometer i bought is ****. The fluid inside has a bubble so no idea if its accurate. I would of thought this should be darker?

to get darker you keep it on the flame for longer and stop at the colour you want. - that's a nice colour though!
 
Cheers everyone, i need a recipe to use it with now if anyone can point me in the right direction? I have a mate in France who says he normally brews only Saisons during the summer. Had a quick look in the bible and it says finish them off at 28c which sounds like my airing cupboard.
Was wondering if i used brown sugar if it would darken quicker?
 
Cheers everyone, i need a recipe to use it with now if anyone can point me in the right direction? I have a mate in France who says he normally brews only Saisons during the summer. Had a quick look in the bible and it says finish them off at 28c which sounds like my airing cupboard.
Was wondering if i used brown sugar if it would darken quicker?

Try the candi sugar with mangrove jacks M41 or M31 and some noble hops. add the grain of your choice your looking at an og of 1070+ (or 4.5 kg of malts & sugars.) 3.5 kg of DME & 1 KG of candi or 500g candi and a 454g tin of golden syrup. or 6kg of pale malt grain instead of the dme. ferment at the warmer end for that Belgian something extra. :twisted:

this is just a doodle of a recipe idea rather than a fully polished one.
 
Cheers i need more yeast lol. Can never have enough. Will give it a go, AG with with the Candi sugar. I have some Hallertauer Mittelfruher i need to use up and will give this Safebrew T58 yeast a crack. Says gives a peppery almost spice flavor. Fingers crossed.
 
Cheers i need more yeast lol. Can never have enough. Will give it a go, AG with with the Candi sugar. I have some Hallertauer Mittelfruher i need to use up and will give this Safebrew T58 yeast a crack. Says gives a peppery almost spice flavor. Fingers crossed.

t58 is good, beware the be-256 or abbeye as it was known it climbs up the stairs to meet you :eek:

m27 temp is 26-32 whereas t58 is 12-25 but 15-20 recommended so if you have no temp control that could make your choice for you? - I do prefer m27 though.
 
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