Candi Sugar for Belgian Dubbel

For this batch of our Belgian Dubbel I made a batch of candi syrup at home instead of using Turbinado (like last time) or buying special syrup from the homebrew store. The mixture was made up of 1 lb of sugar, 0.5 cups of water, and 1.5 tsp of yeast nutrient. The yeast nutrient has diammonium phosphate in it which donates Nitrogen allowing for the non-enzymatic process of browning known as a Malliard Reaction. This is different than carmelizing (which requires higher temperatures) or making invert sugar (which requires the addition of an acid like citric acid). The browing takes place below 300 degrees and was made in two steps.

The initial mixture is a milky-white color as we slowly heated it on the stove:



The next two pictures are at ~220 and 255 degrees and you can see that not a lot of color change has occured yet:










The next picture is at ~290-ish when I added another 0.5 cups of water. When comparing this to some other people's pictures, I think my thermometer is off because it looks closer to ~270:



The addition of water brought the temperature down to about 210 at which point I continued to heat it back up to 290 for a second time. This second temperature increase helps develop and intensify the flavors of the candi sugar, and luckily for me, helped darken it some more. This is at ~250-255 ish and you can see the definite color difference compared to previous pictures:



Once the temperature got up to around 290, I added another 0.5 cups of water and stirred bringing the temperature down again. Next, I raised the temperature to 240 (also known as hard ball to candy makers) to improve the stability of the sugar and try to protect against crystallization. This next picture is to show the difference between the two different sugar colors at the 290 peak temps. I wish is it was a bit darker, but I think for the dubbel it will work out well as I would rather bit a bit lighter than too dark. In the future when we make a Belgian Dark Strong, we will definitely want it darker to not only provide more color, but also a different set of flavors.



The original write up of this process described the flavors at different temperatures along with a photo of his colors at different temperatures:

Light Amber (270F)
-Apricot to light amber in color with some red tones developing. Mild caramel flavors with some soft sweet fruit characters developing. Mellow flat vanilla flavor with some warm cardamom tones. Maybe plums and dried apricots in the distant background.

Medium Amber (280F)
-Amber colored. Strong caramels and intensifying cardamom and plum flavors. Some roasted flavor developing but not bitter.

Deep Amber (290F)
-Deep amber with full red colors. Raisins and plums are the dominant flavors with a hint of toast and coffee. Some rummy and mildly woody flavors. Strong complex caramels are present. It is a sophisticated sweetness with a robust, full characteristic.



As you can see, my first peak temp was much too low, probably around 260-270 and I blame this on the thermometer I was using. Next time I think I will just go based on color at first knowing that the second temperature increase will darken the color more so that the initial color is more important than the temperature. Flavor contributions are just as important as color contributions and hopefully for the dubbel the sugar will impart some dark fruit flavors. We plan on brewing the Dubbel on 1/17 and will hopefully be tasting it 5-6 weeks after that. I will post some pictures of that brewday when the time comes.