Beers (late 19th Century and 20th Century)

[IPA]

Thank you for not shooting me. It did feel a little bit like it, though.

PS: I had to look up the word „interlocutor“ myself. There must be a more common word for it, but it doesn‘t come to mind.

Middleman in English or Schmoozer in Mercan.

[PeeBee]

"Canolwr" in Welsh ... according to Google: 'Fraid I can't speak my own language!

"Middleman" in English? Otherwise, a "shopkeeper" ... apparently, the English are famous for being one of them. It is a "middleman" I attempt to be with this sugar lark. Such as 'tween Ron Pattinson's translations of historic beer recipes and the average homebrewer. But I'm being made to struggle against some strong-minded individuals (who have a very distorted idea of history). But "I can talk" ... At the beginning of this very thread, I'm carefully caramelising Golden Syrup (dreaming up shortcuts to the process) to "recreate" historic Brewers' Invert Sugar.

Fortunately (hardly that!) an earlier bang-on-the-head lead me to doubt what I was doing and try and find evidence for it. I was in for a surprise! Even by mid-19th C. sugar refining was pretty primitive. A pound of white sugar was the reserve of the rich*. Some of whom actually owned the sugar plantations, and "owned" the slaves that toiled to keep them going. This was the environment from which came "Brewers' Invert Sugar". It was all about to change: The collapse (not "end"!) of slave labour and advancements in sugar refining beyond the primitive refining methods of old. Soon (late 19th, early 20th C.) it was to become feasible (financially) to look at "caramelisation" to provide a myriad of propriety brewing sugars.

But not before then! (The doubts in my head are obviously receding ... give me a few more months and I'll be as bigoted as the worst of my distractors).



I guess I need to assemble a (historical) summary of what I'm supporting so more are clear of what I claim? But that may be in to the New Year. Meanwhile, even Wikipedia can assemble some good guidance: Sugar Cane Mill (Wikipedia), Sugar refinery (Wikipedia), Jaggery (Wikipedia), and also Norbert Rillieux (American Chemical Society)

One thing you really need to note: The "Molasses" approach to "Brewers' Invert Sugar" if not massively different to the "caramelisation" approach, just the similarities are "incidental" and greatly more subtle with molasses. Even "Maillard reactions" will be occurring in "Molasses", but again, "incidentally", which is a good thing because "Maillard reactions" weren't described until early 20th C. (Maillard Reactions (Wikipedia). Alkaline conditions? Look out for the use of Lime (and heat) to clarify sugar cane juice.




[EDIT: *That's a bit of a deceptive statement: "White" sugar, in the form of large "loaves" were around in the 18th C. but wouldn't have been economical enough to use in place of barley malt in beer. The Victorian period saw granular sugar appear more widely. But again, was too expensive to chuck in beer. Brewers' Invert Sugar came from various stages of that 19 C. refining process (which was increasingly carried out on home soil), avoiding some of the later expensive refining steps, not least of which would be the drying (invert syrups made more sense).

By the 20th C. advancements in (continuous) refining methods made white, highly refined, sugar the cheaper option and "brown" (less refined, "muscovado", etc.) the more expensive "exceptions". The old refining methods were no longer available for "Brewers' Invert Sugar", but it limped on as "emulations" for a while until the 1960s when most breweries had switched to using sucrose syrups and left just one manufacturer - Ragus - producing the small quantities of "emulated" Brewers' Invert Sugar that some breweries still used.]

[Fr_Marc]

To be honest, I did not intend to say middleman, but simply „a person who takes part in a conversation“…

[MashBag]

Grey button everytime

[PeeBee]

Oooo ... there was something I didn't include in my sugar summary above: The LAW!

Ron Pattinson covers that with: British beer legislation 1802 - 1899 (barclayperkins.blogspot.com)

That appears to exclude any UK use of sugar in beer for most of the first half of the 19th C.

[PeeBee]

Not much in this to help understand sugar in beer, but it does help appreciate the subject of sugar in its wider sense: History of sugar (Wikipedia)

How England became the 'sweetshop of Europe' (University of Oxford)

[PeeBee]

Here's an interesting one. Looking for methods or ingredients to use in places of Ron Pattinson's "generic" (???) "caramel nnn SRM" additions and came across:

https://youtu.be/_U3q4gUxW1g

Obviously not molasses, but it's also obviously some peoples' interpretation of "molasses". But could such a technique produce the generic range of caramels desired (500, 1000, 2000, 5000 SRM). Or at least create an approximate flavour, made up to the right colour with tasteless (relatively) e150c (like Brupak's beer colour stuff).

[PeeBee]

I've always used the "Views" counter to determine if a thread was maintaining interest. I was getting quite chuffed that this thread was going to hit 20,000 views by its second anniversary (March).

In the last 3-4 weeks its shot to well over 100,000 views!

The forum is having a little bit of trouble with its counters! You may not even be seeing the same counter volumes as me? Don't pay the counters much credibility, the issue has been reported.