Invert No 1,2,3

[alwilson]

Hi Guys,

Does anyone have any details on where I can buy or how I can make those inverted sugars that are common in many old recipes?

cheers
Alex

[dave-o]

You can just use golden syrup i believe.

Otherwise i think it's made by heating sugar with a small amount of lemon juice.

[staplefordbill]

Heating up sugar in water with some lemon juice or citric acid powder. http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/citric- ... ugar-8642/

[boingy]

Yep, boil it with a bit of citric acid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_s ... ting_sugar

The different numbers are different colour levels. Boil longer for darker. Look about halfway down here:

http://web.archive.org/web/200901061333 ... _data.html

[alwilson]

I found this online (I've copied some out for completeness)

http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-bre ... ers-invert

Invert No. 1 = 500g Golden Syrup
Invert N0. 2 = 494.17 Golden Syrup + 5.83g Blackstrap
Invert No. 3 = 483.33 Golden Syrup + 16.67 Blackstrap
Black Invert = 446.67 Golden Syrup + 53.33 Blackstrap
Invert No. 4 = 405 Godlen Syrup + 95 Blackstrap

Can Black Treacle be used in place of blackstrap? In the same quantities?

Alex

[boingy]

Depends how "correct" you want to be.
Golden syrup is only partially inverted. About 40% is just normal sucrose iirc.

Not sure mixing treacle with golden syrup will give you quite the same flavours but you could certainly get the right colour!

[alwilson]

Cheers Boingy.

So what is blackstrap and where can I get it from? I know its molasses but i presume more to it than just molasses?

[Graham]

Brewer's Invert sugar is made from raw, unrefined cane sugar; so is Muscovado sugar - it is made from the same stuff.

Tesco's Muscovado sugar is, or was at one time, 600 EBC, I have had it measured in the past; that is directly equivalent to brewers' invert No. 4. All you have to do is dilute Muscovado with ordinary household cane sugar linearly to match the colour of the brewers' invert that you are targeting. I am 75% certain that Muscovado sugar is already invert; as far as I can ascertain from the web, the acid extraction method inverts the raw sugar. Certainly, Tesco's Muscovado is seriously hygroscopic, which leads me to believe that it is invert. The household sugar obviously will not be invert. You can invert the mixture it by simmering it with acid if you like.

However, the reason for brewers traditionally using invert is partly because raw sugar is cheaper than refined, but mostly because of the draconian Excise rules surrounding sugar in a brewery. Even when I was involved with fledgling breweries in the 80s - 90s, the sugar book and the 'bonded' (and locked) sugar store was the first thing that the Excise man audited. All sugar had to be traceable back to source, and the source had to be a registered brewers' sugar supplier. If white Tate and Lyle was discovered, questions would be asked and threats would be made. It is amazing how paranoid Excise were about sugar, even then, and even though they did their gravity and volume dip on almost every brew.

Anyway, the reason for the diatribe of the previous paragraph is that there really is not any good scientific reason for inverting the sugar - it is a matter of tradition and at one time a matter of cost and convenience.

[norman]

This site may be of interest.
http://www.ragus.co.uk/products/organic ... sugar.html