Belgian Candi Sugar at home.

I am continuing to plan my Kingsland Black IPA. In the pursuit of a lighter mouthfeel & body in this dark beer i have decided to make up a batch of Belgian Candi Sugar to supply some of the fermentable sugars.

 Enter stage left Home made Belgian style Candi sugar supplied by 2 kgs of Cane sugar, a dash of Lemon juice and a couple of oranges for a twist.

2kgs of T&L cane sugar in a pan.

 A small volume of preboiled water added to liquify the sugar. The heat is applied along with a few squirts from a Lemon to supply the Glucose & Fructose debonding acid.

While the sugar/water/acid solution is heating i cut and squeezed the juice from a couple of oranges.

I obtained a decent cup of fresh OJ. That wasn't quite enough zing for me, i also grated a good amount of orange peel zest off of the squeezed oranges.

Both were added to the heating and liquifying sugar solution.

Preboil, there was a nice colour change imparted by the orange juice and zest.

After that it was full steam ahead to a rolling boil at 200 Deg F.

I then increased the heat to 300 Deg F quickly to achieve full 'Hard Crack' with minimal colouring.

 I poured off the first 900ml into a baking tray and placed it outside to set in the very early Scottish Winter.

I returned the pan to the boil for 5 minutes to further darken the fermentables and then poured it into a tray for Winter cooling.

I returned the final few hundred Ml's to the heat for a further 5 minutes. Sadly this remainder took on a burnt flavour(too little liquid and too much heat). I won't use it as the caramelisation is too extreme in flavour for my next couple of beers.

So there we have it. A one hour candy sugar session that has supplied me with a shade under 2 kg's of candy aimed directly at two of the beers circling in my head. The light one below will go into my future Lager type beer which is next on the cards after Kingsland Black IPA.

The Darker Brother is heading towards Kingsland Black IPA.

Overcooked brother is there only to show just how much difference a couple of minutes makes at 300 deg!

I really enjoyed making this today and i am very happy with the taste layer added from the orange juice and zest. A good way to be brewing without brewing if you see what i mean.

Boring cost bit

2kg's cane sugar £1.38

2 oranges £0.60

Gas £1.00

Total 1.49 per Kilo


Graham Sanders over at Franklinbrew has put together a nice guide to making various Belgian fermentable products. I won't reiterate his well written guide.

http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/candi_sugar.html